Abstract
THIS comprehensive treatise is the first English monograph to deal exhaustively with the fascinating but complex chemistry of the natural organic colouring matters. The historical aspect of the subject-matter and the scheme of classification are unfolded in the introduction, after which eighteen groups of natural dyes are described. The first chapter deals with the anthra-quinone group, containing alizarin, the colour principle of madder root, which shares with indigo of the nitrogenous indole group the distinction of being one of the dyes of an antiquity so remote that it precedes the dawn of history. Although the importance of alizarin and its synthetic derivatives has overshadowed that of its other naturally occurring congeners, yet it should not be overlooked that the anthraquinone group contains also cochineal, a colour principle originally obtained from Mexico, and utilised in the ancient American civilisations long before it became known to Europeans. Lac and kermes, the Asiatic counterparts of cochineal, also contain colour principles belonging to the anthraquinone group. It is remarkable that naphthalene, which figures so largely in the production of synthetic dyes, is represented among natural colouring matters only by the small naph-thoquinone group.
The Natural Organic Colouring Matters.
By Prof. A. G. Perkin Dr. A. E. Everest. (Monographs on Industrial Chemistry.) Pp. xxii + 655. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1918.) Price 28s. net.
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M., G. The Natural Organic Colouring Matters . Nature 103, 241 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103241a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103241a0