In the search for antimalarial drugs, the group at the National Institute of Health has investigated as well as ethanolamines, the amino alcohols of type III with the propanolamine side chain. At the suggestion of Dr. Lyndon F. Small, we undertook the preparation of the propanolamines in which the naphthalene nucleus was substituted with a methoxyl group or a halogen atom just as we did in the case of the ethanolamines (1).
COCHs
COCH2CH2NR2 CH(OH)CH2CH2NR2The most direct approach to compounds of the type III is, of course, through the Mannich ketones II. This is the method used at the National Institute of Health, and the one we used for the preparation of several propanolamines. Our preparations in this connection and some observations on the Mannich reaction are reported in this paper. In certain cases, sometimes for interesting reasons, the preparation by way of the Mannich ketones proved impossible, and a number of propanolamines were prepared by other methods discussed in the following article (2).In the course of our work we prepared Mannich ketones II from 4-methoxyand 4-chloro-l-acetonaphthone and several dialkylamines (Table I). In these preparations nitromethane possessed advantages over several more conventional(3) solvents and is recommended for trial in other cases.In attempting to prepare an amino ketone from 4-methoxy-l-isobutyronaphthone IV in order to arrive eventually at a branched chain amino alcohol V,