Ergotoxine and some other constituents of ergot / by George Barger and H.H. Dale.

  • Barger, George, 1878-1939.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ergotoxine and some other constituents of ergot / by George Barger and H.H. Dale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    4. This other hypothetical principle is not the ‘ clavin ’ of Vahlen, which is a mixture of leucin and aspartic acid, and is pharma- cologically inert. It will, perhaps, be useful to express in tabular form our concep- tion of the relation to the ergot alkaloids, ergotinine and its hydrate ergotoxine, of the various other 6 active principles ’ obtained from ergot, based on our own experiments and on those of other observers. Ecboline and ergotine (Wenzell) = Mixtures of alkaloids, containing choline (MeulenhofF). Amorphous ergotinine (Tanret) = Impure mixture of ergotinine and ergo- toxine. Picrosclerotine (Dragendorff) = Ergotinine, possibly mixed with ergotoxine. Sclerocrystalline (Podwyssotski) = Ergotinine. Sphacelinic Acid (Robert) — Inactive resin with adherent alkaloid. Cornutine (Robert) = An alkaloidal resin, probably containing some ergo- toxine, and also some other active substance, which may be a decom- position product of ergotoxine. Cornutine (Reller) = Impure mixture of ergotinine with ergotoxine. Chrysotoxin (Jacobj) = Inactive yellow colouring matter with a small pro- portion of adherent alkaloid. Secalintoxin (Jacobj) = Mixture of ergotinine and ergotoxine. Sphacelotoxin (Jacobj) = Impure ergotoxine. Hydroergotinin (Rraft) = Synonym for ergotoxine. It will be clear from the above table that Tanret’s conception of the nature of the active constituent of ergot approximated much more closely to that held by ourselves and by Kraft than did those of the intervening observers. The only modification necessary of the view put forward by Tanret, albeit an important one, was the recognition that his so-called 4 amorphous ergotinine ’ was not merely physically different from the crystalline, but was largely composed of a separate though closely-related chemical individual, and that to this amorphous alkaloid, and not to its crystalline anhydride, were due the more prominent physiological effects of ergot. Led astray by Tanret’s identification of the two alkaloids, and finding that the crystalline, and, therefore, pure, ergotinine was almost inert, other observers such as Kobert and Jacobj were induced to search in other