XXIX.—On the Colouring Matter of the Morinda citrifolia

Extract

The chemistry of the colouring matters has, perhaps, scarcely as yet met with the extended and complete investigation which the importance of the subject, in a theoretical and practical point of view, appears to deserve. The attention of chemists has been almost exclusively directed to the study of a comparatively small number of these substances, such as indigo, logwood, and the colouring matters of the lichens, which have been well and completely investigated; while the remaining, and by far the more extensive class, has received only a very partial and imperfect examination. To the latter, however, belong some of the most important of our dyes; and among others, the most valuable and indispensable of all, madder namely, the chemistry of which forms a problem as yet very far from being solved, but which chemists have shewn little disposition to submit to a thorough and searching investigation; and this disinclination seems to continue, notwithstanding that ground has been broken on the subject by the important observations of Robiquet, Kuhlmann, Runge, and others, which, though extremely incomplete, serve at least to indicate the importance of the results it is likely to afford, and to clear away the preliminary difficulties by which the commencement of such an investigation is surrounded.