The characters and methods of assay of the official hypophosphites, and, A note on the mydriatic alkaloids / by H.A.D Jowett.

  • Jowett, H. A. D. (Hooper Albert Dickinson)
Date:
[1898?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The characters and methods of assay of the official hypophosphites, and, A note on the mydriatic alkaloids / by H.A.D Jowett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/24 (page 16)
    NOTE ON THE MYDRIATIC ALKALOIDS.* BY H. A. D. JOWETT, D.SC. That some confusion should have arisen in the past regarding this group of alkaloids is not altogether surprising, considering that there was on the market a variety of products designated daturine, duboisine, heavy and light atropine, etc., and that the literature of the subject was in a most unsatisfactory condition. The work of Schmidt and others has, however, removed these discrepancies, and it is now possible to obtain in commerce pro¬ ducts of definite chemical composition of a high degree of purity. A paper read by Dr. G. Sharpe at last year’s Conference (P. /., 1897, p. 160) contained several statements and conclusions which are not in accord with our present knowledge of this subject, and in the 1898 B.P. the description and tests of the official members of this group are generally unsatisfactory, and in some cases mis¬ leading and inaccurate. I therefore thought that it would not be without interest to the members to contribute a short note on the subject. As Dr. Sharpe says, the several names which have been used for a mixture of these alkaloids, as daturine, duboisine, light atropine, etc., should be once and for all abandoned, as they only represent a variable product obtained from a particular plant, the composi¬ tion of the product depending on the process of manufacture, but consisting chiefly of atropine or hyoscyamine. The only alkaloids belonging to this group which can at present be definitely con¬ sidered as chemical entities are atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine. These are bodies of definite composition, whose chemical and physical properties have been carefully studied. In addition to these bases pseudo-hyoscyamine, from Duboisia myoporoides, isomeric with atropine and hyoscyamine, has been * Read at the British Pharmaceutical Conference, 1S98, and reprinted from the Pharmaceutical Journal, August 13, 1S9S.