From ergot to "Ernutin" : an historical sketch.

Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: From ergot to "Ernutin" : an historical sketch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/76 (page 59)
    Although a good deal of clinical evidence was adduced to support Tanret's view that in ergotinine he had isolated the active therapeutic principle of ergot, the experiments conducted by Robert and others showed the pure crystalline alkaloid to be inert. Recently this apparent discrepancy has been explained by the isolation by Barger and r J • i • i Ergotoxine Carr, in the Wellcome Physiological Research discovered Laboratory, of the highly active alkaloid, weiicome ergotoxine, which, although itself amorphous, ^^fai can, in the form of its crystalline salts, be Research . . . Laboratory prepared m a state of chemical purity. It has since been shown that ergotoxine is the hydrate of Tanret's crystalline ergotinine, and that either can easily be converted into the other, and also that the active principles prepared both by Robert and Jacobj, owe their activity to the presence in them of ergotoxine. Both laboratory experiment and the results of clinical trial have already made it evident that ergotoxine in suitable doses produces the effects for which ergot is prescribed. The great value, however, of this principle as a medicinal agent is due to the fact that the Its great dose can be regulated with a degree of ^^i^!Lla accuracy which has been impossible in the a^ent past when only extracts and similar preparations of the crude drug were available. The results obtained with the official liquid extract, and with other preparations of ergot hitherto in use, have been variable and uncertain. This oinformerllty has been due to ignorance of the properties preparations and active constituents of the drug, which has of necessity prevented the elaboration of correct pharmaceutical methods. The isolation of the active alkaloid ergotoxine now renders possible, for the first time, the production of an ergot preparation of definite strength. A chemical