AbstractsChemistry

A growing interest has manifested itself within the past two or three years in "phytin" and "phytic acid", and in some of the compounds of the latter. Posternak first isolated this substance from the seeds of the red fir, pumpkin, pea, bean, white and yellow lupine and potato. Patten and Hart obtained the substance from wheat bran, and Hart and Tottingham found it in corn meal, oats and barley. The organic phosphorus materials obtained by alcoholic precipitations of aqueous or dilute acid extracts from these various sources are not identical, but ultimate analyses show a fair degree of similarity. Thus the phosphorus varies between 14 and 17 per cent, and they all contain varying amounts of magnesium, potassium and calcium. There has been prepared also, from the phytin from most of these sources, the free "phytic acid", corresponding to the formula C2H8P2O9, (an-hydro-oxy-methylene-phosphoric acid, Posternak), or C6H24P6O27, (Neuberg, Starkenstein).