Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The simpler natural bases / by George Barger. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![Funk [1911] in England, and Suzuki with Shimamura and Odake [1912] in Japan, showed independently and about the same time that the substance is a base, is present in very small amount, and has great curative action. To Funk belongs the further credit of having been the first to analyse the substance and to isolate the same or a similar body from yeast. Chemical work in this direction has also been done by Schaumann [1912, I], Moore and his collaborators [1912], Cooper [1913] and others. In spite of the discrepancies which exist between the statements of various authors, it seems fairly well established that the curative sub¬ stance in rice polishings, for which Funk has suggested the name vitamine and which Suzuki and his collaborators call oryzanine, is a base which can be extracted by water and by alcohol, but not by acetone or ether. It is precipitated by phosphotungstic acid, by tannin, by mercuric chloride in alcoholic solution and by silver nitrate and baryta. The latter property indicates the presence of an imino- group. The mercurichloride is soluble in boiling water. Suzuki, Shimamura and Odake describe a crystalline picrate of their substance, which they did not however analyse. Funk, by utilising the properties indicated above, obtained from rice polishings a minute yield of a crystalline substance, to which he assigned the formula C17H20O7N2, but more recently [1913], by fractional crystal¬ lisation, he separated it into two substances; one of these was found to give the following average analytical results: C = 58*85 per cent, H = 3*9 per cent., N = io*6 per cent. ; it melted at 2330. The other gave on the average C = 58*4 per cent, H = 4*0 per cent, N = 11*05 per cent., and melted at 2340. The latter was identified as nicotinic acid, C6H502N, which, in the pure state, is inactive and had already been obtained from rice by Suzuki. To the former substance Funk gave the formula C26H20O9N4 and he stated that it is a tetrabasic acid. It is considered by Funk to be the chief curative substance in rice polishings. Funk separated the “vitamine” fraction of yeast, which he at first considered to be identical with that of rice, into nicotinic acid and an active principle melting at 2290 (corr.) which when dried in vacuo at room temperature has the formula C26H2109N5, but dried at ioo° changes to C24H1909N5, implying the somewhat unusual loss of two carbon and two hydrogen atoms. It will be seen that the substance C26H20O9N4 obtained from rice has a very close resemblance to nicotinic acid, both as regards melting point and chemical composition, and at present the possibility does not seem completely excluded, that this body is merely nicotinic acid con-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31347551_0124.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
