Scott and Qureshi in 19681 claimed the conversion of (-)-tabersonine into ( ± )-catharanthine (12% yield) and (± )-pseudocatharanthine (28%), and of (+)-stemmadenine into (± )-tabersonine (12%), (± )-catharanthine (9%), and (±)-pseudocatharanthine (16%) in refluxing glacial acetic acid over periods ranging from 16 to 72 hr; even after extensive exchange of experimental information with the above authors we were unable to reproduce these results, indeed we failed to observe even traces of the rearrangement products claimed. With reluctance, we eventually felt obliged to publish our findings,2 more recently with full experimental details.3•4 *One simple example of a result which could not be affected by experimental factors such as added boiling chips, external bath temperature, etc., is our observation that, on a 500-mg scale, catharanthine survives to the extent of less than 1 % in refluxing acetic acid after 12 hr,3 and that on a 5-mg scale it ceases to be detectable by tic even after only 30 min; this makes the isolation of the order of 10% of (± ^catharanthine1 under such conditions difficult to understand.We wish to state quite simply that none of the experimental work now described in preliminary form by Scott and Wei58•0•*1 contradicts our findings; there is men-
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