Albert Niemann 1860

[dalpat077]

Does anybody happen to have a copy of, or a link to, Albert Niemann's 1860 paper entitled "About a new organic base in the coca leaves" (the aforementioned title as noted as translated by Google Translate)?

I have a copy of the original German paper and which I'm using Google Translate to translate into English. But I'm not convinced that it's (Google Translate) doing a stellar job of the same (not to mention the fact that it's hard going).

 

[sekio]

Über eine neue organische Base in den Cocablättern

books.google.ca

But I guess you want it translated into english like some sort of barbarian.
Can't help you there. I'm not translating 50+ pages for free.

 

[dalpat077]

But I guess you want it translated into english like some sort of barbarian.

Well my German isn't quite what it should be (may as well be written in Russian as things stand right now)!

The paper I have is 26 pages long so I wonder what's in the rest of the publication (now downloaded and thanks).

I shall persevere with Google Translate and upload for (dare I say) "peer review"!

There's actually a thread (extremely old though) on drugs-forum which APPEARS to be discussing this but I don't know the source(s) or the members. I sure hope though that I'm not translating the same thing as contained in one of those posts (because that post makes NO sense to me whatsoever and if that be the case I'm wasting my time). From what I gather though: he somehow managed to go from leaf to freebase crystals with a minimal amount of fuss. Seems that purification and/or conversion to HCL came some many years later (like as in decades). Oh well. Guess I'm going to find out (the hard way i.e. once translation and collation is complete) soon enough.

 

[sekio]

So you're not the next Paul Le Roux then? He went from writing TrueCrypt, to starting a network of those spam-driven "Canadian pharmacies" advertising all the tramadol, Fioricet (butalbital, whoo), carisoprodol, and even sildenafil you can get your grubby hands on, and it's all legit because there's real doctors involved! (Real doctors that couldn't even see the patient, only had a brief description of your medical issues, and knowing that another filled Rx means another maybe $2 for the doctor? You say your problem is "ewtuiw4trhefkij" and you want 300 count Ultram and 300 count Soma? OK, approved, onto the next.)
I guess the whole "grey market drug empire" was not enough for him, so he moved onto being an international crime lord, and set up a compound in Somalia staffed with well armed mercenaries, where he wanted to grow dope.
Pretty fucking crazy story.

Through his company Southern Ace, Le Roux supplied AK-47 assault rifles and light machine guns to Somali militias starting in April 2009, in violation of an existing arms embargo.

Rumors exist that Le Roux was planning to build a militia to invade the Seychelles. His enforcer Hunter is known to have bragged about such plans, but the head of the UN investigative team concerned with Le Roux's activities in Somalia dismissed it. According to him, Le Roux intended to set up a security firm specialized in protecting commercial ships from pirate attacks.
[...]
"Ottavio" (Le Roux) was alleged by the UN to also be involved in experiments to cultivate narcotic plants including opium, coca and cannabis near the Ethiopian border. The involvement of Philippine, Zimbabwean and South African nationals in the operation was implied. Some sources claim Le Roux had plans to start a cocaine plantation in Somalia.

If you want an in depth read about the life of this guy, check out a book called "The Mastermind" by Evan Ratliff
If you can't find a free copy maybe use Library Genesis instead for a free ebook.

he somehow managed to go from leaf to freebase crystals with a minimal amount of fuss.

bet you, if anything, it's from macerating the leaf in alkali-water solution, and extracting the whole mix with hexanes/"pet ether"/ligroin multiple times. Treat the combined hexane layers with e.g. anhydrous magnesium sulfate or similar drying agent to ensure very low moisture presence (cocaine doesn't like moisture or alcohols under some circumstances) Then you can treat it with activated carbon to decolorize the chlorophylls present (or do the permanganate thing maybe), reduce the volume somewhat, and let the solution chill (all while excluding moisture)

I'll read the paper and see what i can divine

 

[sekio]

Representation of an alkaloid.

Of the investigations and observations listed, those made by MacLagan are evidently the most important and most interesting, and I therefore believed that I would have to repeat and examine them before I used other methods of searching for an alkaloid.

For this purpose, 200 grams of cut leaves with enough 85% alcohol, to which 1/50 sulfuric acid was mixed in, are poured over in a flask so that the former appeared completely covered and then subjected to a four-day digestion at approximately + 40C. The dark greenish-brown tincture, which was then separated from the leaves by straining and squeezing, still showed a fairly acidic reaction. The color of the leaves had turned a light green after pressing, and even after drying they only showed such an insignificant taste that repeated extraction seemed unnecessary to me. On the other hand, after the first pressing, they were soaked once with alcohol and then pressed again.

Both combined and filtered extracts are then mixed with a thin paste of freshly prepared hydrated lime in a strong excess and left in contact with it for 24 hours at normal temperature, shaking it frequently. Immediately after the lime has been mixed in, one notices how part of the color is deposited on it, and the former thereby acquires a dirty greenish-brown color. Incidentally, this deposit always settles rather quickly, so that the greater part of the weakly alkaline tincture can easily be drawn off with a siphon. The remainder was filtered off from the lime and mixed with the rest of the liquid: the colored lime residue, on the other hand, was examined further in the manner given below after washing with cold alcohol.

[more translations coming tomoro eventually cause I type Deutsche slow]