A Good Old-Fashioned Purge

It is painful to confess, but over 25 years ago 1 found that rational, well-precedented syntheses failed to produce an exciting and previously unknown lactam. In desperation, I tried a thermal dehydration of the precursor amino acid under vacuum. Crystals of apparent product were obtained, and they were. . . the starting material only. Drat Almost simultaneously, and completely independently, a research group at another university also found that the precedented reactions failed and these scientists also punted with a thermal dehydration under vacuum. They employed slightly different conditions than mine and were rewarded with a tiny yield of the desired compound (see H.K. Hall, Jr. and A. El-Shekeil, Chemical Reviews, Vol. 83, p. 549, 1983, which reviews this synthesis and their other outstanding work in this field). Perhaps 1 should have employed philosophical apparatus rather than simple glassware. 

Bibliotheca Alchemica Et Chemica, H S Publishers, Utrecht, 1986, p. 440. This is a reprint of the book published in 1949 by E. Weil, London and supplemented by Catalogue 62, H.P. Kraus, originally printed in 1953 by H.P. Kraus, New York. 

The Hermetic Museum Alchemy and Mysticism, Taschen, Cologne, 1997, p. 600. 

Webster s New World Dictionary of the American Language—College Edition, The World Publishing Co., Cleveland and New York, 1964, p 143. 

FIGURE 127. Illustration of uses for the metals antimony, mercury, iron ( Mars ), and copper ( Venus ). Clearly, both antimony and mercury compounds are effective emetics, but a closer look at this figure suggests that some antimony compounds are effective laxatives (purgatives) as well. (From Barlet s 1657 Le Vray Mithodique Corns de la Physique.) 

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