Mercurypyrimidines pyrimidines

Although it may be expected that other mercury derivatives of pyrimidines will be applied in this general reaction, several limitations warrant consideration. Oddly enough, attempts to employ a mercuri derivative of uracil in this condensation reaction have thus far been unsuccessful.810 As has been pointed out, since many of the mercurypyrimidines are insoluble, it is both desirable and usually possible to prepare them in essentially quantitative yield by the use of stoichiometric proportions of the reactants (pyrimidine, alkali, and mercuric halide), in order to obtain a pure product.198 With uracil, however, it has not thus far been possible to prepare a pure mercury salt (that is, monochloromercuriuracil, diuracilmercury, or uracilmercury). Instead, mixtures, which probably contained some unreacted uracil, were obtained.811 Lack of a solution to this problem may account for the consistent failure to adapt uracil to the mercuri synthesis. 

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