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The isolation of an antimalarial alkaloid from Hydrangea has been described (1). The elemental analysis indicated an empirical formula of Ci6HigN303-2HCl.Degradation studies were initiated even though only extremely small amounts of the alkaloid were available. The limited supply of the alkaloid made it imperative that maximum use be made of model compounds.1Through the following discussion it will become apparent that many of the postulates could have been decided by straightforward degradation reactions.However, with only a few milligrams of the alkaloid available at any one time, many of these approaches were not feasible. All exploratory reactions were run on 2-3 milligram samples, and because of the difficulty of isolating products or determining the course of a reaction, some of these ended in failures that would have been circumvented had larger samples been employed. As a descriptive summary of the approach to the problem, the course of the degradation has been more or less described as it evolved under the actual conditions.Determinations for N-methyl, O-methyl, and C-methyl groupings in the Hydrangea alkaloid were negative as were tests for isolated unactivated double bonds or for amino nitrogen. The alkaloid absorbed ultraviolet light with absorption maxima at 265, 275, 302.5, and 313 mg in 0.1 N sodium hydroxide and at 272.5 mg with an inflection at 295 µ in 0.1 N hydrochloric acid.When the alkaloid was subjected to alkaline hydrolysis, there was extensive coloration with marked changes in the ultraviolet absorption spectra. Concomitant with these changes an aromatic amine was formed that could be detected by the method of Bratton and Marshall (2). The rate and extent of amine formation was dependent on the concentration of alkali. One-tenth normal sodium hydroxide for 4 hours at 100°liberated 59% of theory, an amount that could not be further increased by prolonged hydrolysis. Two normal sodium hydroxide under similar conditions liberated 96% of theory. The rate of color

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Finally, we thank Judith Dinar-Lewis of Bridging Access to Care and Elise Koffler of CAMBA for their generous support of the project. Most importantly, we thank the study participants and community residents who gave their time and effort to this study.

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