Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Flückiger, Friedrich A. (Friedrich August), 1828-1894.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    addition of chromic acid an abundant precipitate of chroniate of del- phinine. The same solution likewise furnished copious precipitates when bichloride of platinum,^ iodohydrargyrate of potassium or bichro- mate of potassium were added. We ascertained that pure acetate of delphinine gives the same reactions with these tests. By repeating the above treatment on a larger scale we obtained crystals of delphinine of considerable size, and also a second alkaloid, not soluble in ether, pro- bably Couerbe's staphisaine. In 1864, Darbel in a thesis ^ published at Montpellier, announced the existence of a third alkaloid which he termed Staphisagrine—a name which unfortunately has been also applied to staphisaine. By exhausting stavesacre seeds with boiling ether, we got 27 per cent, of fatty oil, which continued fluid even at — 5° C. It concreted by means of hyponitric acid, and is therefore to be reckoned among the non-drying oils. The drug air-dry contains 8 per cent, of hydroscopic water. Dried at 100° C, and incinerated it left 8*7 per cent, of ash. Nothing exact is known of the Delphinic acid of Hofschlager (about 1820) said to be crystalline and volatile. Commerce—The seeds are imported from Trieste and from the south of France, especially from Nismes, near which city as well as in Italy (Puglia) the plant is cultivated. Uses—Stavesacre seeds are still employed as in old times for the destruction of j)&diculi in the human subject, for which purpose they are reduced to powder which is dusted among the hair. Dr. Balmanno Squire ^ having ascertained that ^wurigo senilis is dependent on the presence of pediculus, has recommended an ointment of which the essential ingre- dient is the fatty oil of stavesacre seeds extracted by ether. It is plain that such a preparation would contain delphinine. Delphinine itself has been used externally in neuralgic affections. Stavesacre seeds are largely consumed for destroying the pediculi that infest cattle. RADIX ACONITI. Tuber Aconiti; Aconite Boot^; ^.Racine d'Aco?iit; G. Uisenhutknollen, Sturmliutknollen. Botanical Origin—Aconitum Napellus L.—This widely-diffused and most variable species grows chieiiy in the mountainous districts of the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere. It is of frequent occurrence throughout the chain of the Alps up to more than 6500 feet, the Pyrenees, the mountains of Germany and Austria, and is also found in Denmark and Sweden. It has become naturalized in a few spots in the west of England and in South Wales. Eastward it grows throughout the whole of Siberia, extending to the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast of North America. It occurs in company with other species on the Himalaya at 10,000 to 16,000 feet above the sea-level. The plant is cultivated for medicinal use and also for ornament. ^ The platinic compound is in fine micro- ^ Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 40.5. scopic crystals. ■* We use the word root as most in ac- ^ Recherches chimiques et physiologiques cordance with the teaching of English sur les alcaloides du DelphinWyTn Sta]ihis- botanists. axfrkc.