Punicin

PELLETIERIN OR PUNICIN?—Tanret has presented to the Academy of Sciences, of France, a communication relating the isolation by himself of the active alkaloid of pomegranate root bark, which, in honor of Pelletier, he designates Pelletierin. To this appellation Prof. Falck objects, on the ground that, inasmuch as nearly all of the proximate principles of plants bear names indicative of their botanical origin, we have been trained to reason backward from a name to the mother plant. Retaining the name pelletierin may too easily lead to misunderstandings, for there is a small plant growing in South America, of the order of Primulace, described by A. de St. Hilaire and F. de Girard as Pelletiera verna. Will not, therefore, everybody refer Tanret's appellation to this plant instead of to Punica? True, the names of granatin and punicin have already been made use of; but the punicin of Rhighini, although bearing some resemblance to Tanret's alkaloid, was undoubtedly an impure preparation; considering, however, the possibility that the former might have, on further purification, isolated the same body, the suggestion does not seem improper to term the new alkaloid Punicin.—Ibid., No. 6. [i.e., as quoted from Archives de Pharmacie, volume 11 number 6]