On the synthesis of tribasic acids / by Maxwell Simpson.

  • Simpson, Maxwell, 1815-1902.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the synthesis of tribasic acids / by Maxwell Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [Reprinted from the Journal of the Chemical Society, December, 1SG5.] By Maxwell Simpson, M.D., F.R.S. In a paper which appeared some time ago in the “Transactions of the Royal Society,”* I showed that the cyanides of the diatomic radicals (at least those which form glycols) when treated with potash, yield bibasic acids which contain respectively four equiva- lents of carbon more than the parent radicals. Analogy would lead us to infer that the cyanides of the triatomic radicals would suffer a corresponding decomposition when treated with the same reagent, and yield tribasic acids, containing respectively six equi- valents of carbon more than the original radicals. Thus, as we obtain in this way from the cyanide of ethylene (to take a par- ticular case) a bibasic acid of the composition C8H608 (succinic acid), so from the tercyanide of allyl (CcH5Cy3), if the analogy holds good, we ought to get a tribasic acid, having the composition C12H80i2 : C4H4Cy2+ 2(^)0,) + 4HO = O. + 2NH:i C8H5Cya+3(g)o2) + 6110 ) 08 + 3NHS The following experiments were performed with the view of testing the correctness of the above inference :— * Philosophical Transactions for 1861, p. 61.