Malachite green metabolized into LMG. Only the cation MG is deeply colored, whereas the leuco and alcohol derivatives are not. This difference arises because only the cationic form has extended pi-delocalization, which allows the molecule to absorb visible light. The leuco form of malachite green was first prepared by Hermann Fischer in 1877 by condensing benzaldehyde and dimethylaniline in the molecular ratio 1:2 in the presence of sulfuric acid. Malachite green is traditionally used as a dye. Kilotonnes of MG and related triarylmethane dyes are produced annually for this purpose. MG is active against the oomycete "Saprolegnia", which infects fish eggs in
The Malachite Box total circulation of about 37 million copies. "The Malachite Box" has been republished many times since then. The tales were translated into 64 languages, more than 250 editions in foreign languages were released. The list of languages include English, Hungarian, Italian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, Assamese, Kannada. Four stories from "The Malachite Box" were published in the 1943 Moscow magazine "Internatsionalnaya Literatura" in English and French. In 1944 the book was translated from Russian into English by Alan Moray Williams and published by Hutchinson. Bazhov did not know about this translation and found out about it accidentally. In the