[beta] [alpha] / NH · CH2 C3H4N2O2 or CO < , \ NH · CO [gamma]
the ureïde of glycollic acid, may be obtained by heating allantoin or alloxan with hydriodic acid, or by heating bromacetyl urea with alcoholic ammonia. It crystallizes in needles, melting at 216° C.
When hydrolysed with baryta water yields hydantoic (glycoluric)acid, H2N·CO·NH·CH2·CO2H, which is readily soluble in hot water, and on heating with hydriodic acid decomposes into ammonia, carbon dioxide and glycocoll, CH2·NH2·CO2·H. Many substituted hydantoins are known; the [alpha]-alkyl hydantoins are formed on fusion of aldehyde- or ketone-cyanhydrins with urea, the [beta]-alkyl hydantoins from the fusion of mono-alkyl glycocolls with urea, and the [gamma]-alkyl hydantoins from the action of alkalis and alkyl iodides on the [alpha]-compounds. [gamma]-Methyl hydantoin has been obtained as a splitting product of caffeine (E. Fischer, _Ann._, 1882, 215, p. 253).
HYDE, the name of an English family distinguished in the 17th century. Robert Hyde of Norbury, Cheshire, had several sons, of whom the third was Lawrence Hyde of Gussage St Michael, Dorsetshire. Lawrence's son Henry was father of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon (q.v.), whose second son by his second wife was Lawrence, earl of Rochester (q.v.); another son was Sir Lawrence Hyde, attorney-general to Anne of Denmark, James I.'s consort; and a third son was Sir Nicholas Hyde (d. 1631), chief-justice of England. Sir Nicholas entered parliament in 1601 and soon became prominent as an opponent of the court, though he does not appear to have distinguished himself in the law. Before long, however, he deserted the popular party, and in 1626 he was employed by the duke of Buckingham in his defence to impeachment by the Commons; and in the following year he was appointed chief-justice of the king's bench, in which office it fell to him to give judgment in the celebrated case of Sir Thomas Darnell and others who had been committed to prison on warrants signed by members of the privy council, which contained no statement of the nature of the charge against the prisoners. In answer to the writ of _habeas corpus_ the attorney-general relied on the prerogative of the crown, supported by a precedent of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Hyde, three other judges concurring, decided in favour of the crown, but without going so far as to declare the right of the crown to refuse indefinitely to show cause against the discharge of the prisoners. In 1629 Hyde was one of the judges who condemned Eliot, Holles and Valentine for conspiracy in parliament to resist the king's orders; refusing to admit their plea that they could not be called upon to answer out of parliament for acts done in parliament. Sir Nicholas Hyde died in August 1631.