Although construction of the gross skeletoii of emetine (I), the principal base of ipecac, has been recorded in syntheses of (i) C-noremetine, 2bJ (ii) a mixture of diastereomers of the structure I which was dehydrogenated to d, l-rubremetine, 2c and (iii) a mixture of diastereomers from which emetine itself was isolated, 2a none of these studies was concerned with the formidable problem of stereochemistry and sterically controlled ...
