Gmelin test

Dark green plates or prisms with violet surface color from methanol. Does not meli, blackens and dec above 300". Absorption spectrum Gray et al, ioc. cit. Soluble in methanol, ether, chloroform, carbon disulfide, benzene, soln of alkali hydroxides. Gives the later color changes of the Gmelin test starting with green. 

Biliverdin—CaaHaaNiOe—is a green powder, insoluble in HaO, ether, and chloroform, soluble in alcohol and in alkaline solutions. It exists in green biles, but its presence in yellow biles or. biliary calculi is doubtful. It responds to Gmelin s test. In alkaline solution it is changed after a time into biliprasin. 

Christian Gottlob Gmelin travelled in France, England, Norway, and Sweden (where he worked with Berzelius) and was professor (1817) of chemistry and pharmacy in Tubingen. He worked on lithium compounds (see p. 152), mineral analysis, etc. He mentions the turmeric paper test for boric acid, discovered artificial ultramarine independently of J. B. Guimet (1826), and translated the first three volumes of Berzelius s Jahres-Bericht (see p. 146). 

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