Materia medica, pharmacy and therapeutics, including the physiological action of drugs, the special therapeutics of disease, official and practical pharmacy, minute directions for prescription writing and avoiding incompatibility, also the antidotal and antagonistic treatment of poisoning

Front matter

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Preface To The Tenth Edition

This edition, the tenth, is practically a new book; the former text having been largely re-written, expanded by the introduction of much new matter, and corrected to conform with the recent changes in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. One hundred and thirteen new articles and paragraphs have been inserted, and nearly four hundred articles have been re-written. Material considered obsolete, or of slight comparative importance, has been removed, and a larger page adopted, thus keeping the size of the volume within its former limit. A change of type has greatly improved the appearance of the book.

The new matter includes a List of Incompatibles for each important drug, also articles and paragraphs on Acetozone, Adrenalin, Agurin, Appendicitis, Aspirin, Atoxyl, Barium, Bromipin, Camphoric Acid, Carbon Monoxide, Chloretone, Cotarnine, Cundurango, Dysentery (Tropical), Echinacea, Enteroclysis, Ethyl Chloride, Euphthalamin, Ferropyrin, Filmaron, Gambir, Hedonal, Iodipin, Kaolin, Mercurol, Nitrous Oxide, Nutrient Serum, Orexin, Oxalic Acid, Oxycamphor, Sabal, Salts, Scopola, Spinal Sclerosis, Stovaine, Sublamin, Sulphaminol, Taka-diastase, Tannalbin, Tannocol, Tannoform, Tetranitrin, Theocin, Theocol, Thigenol, Trichloracetic Acid, Veronal, Yohimbine, and sixtyfive other drugs and preparations.

The subjects formerly discussed under the titles Toxins and Antitoxins are now brought together under the title Sera, and their text has been carefully revised. Other re-written articles are those on Acetanilide, Acetphenetidin, Acids, Alkalies, Alkaloids, Aconite, Animal Extracts, Antiseptics, Argentum, Belladonna, Benzoin, Bromides, Caffeine, Calcium, Chloral, Chloroform, Cinchona, Coca, Cuprum, Ergot, Formaldehyde, Gelsemium, Glycerin, Hydrargyrum, Hyoscyamus, Opium, Phenol, Physostigma, Potassium, Salicin, Sulphur, Veratrum; and thirty-six others in the section on Materia Medica: also thirtyfour in the section on Pharmacy, and two hundred and ninety-one in the section on Therapeutics. The last-named section has been expanded by the incorporation of many hundred items from current medical literature, and from the author's personal experience.

The nomenclature of the eighth revision of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia has been strictly followed in the sections on Materia Medica and Pharmacy, but in the section on Therapeutics the familiar trade-names of some drugs (Salol, Sulphonal, Trional, Urotropin, etc.) have been retained instead of their cumbersome and unfamiliar official titles. Many preparations of the British Pharmacopoeia are mentioned.

viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

In preparing this edition the author has earnestly striven to merit the continued favor of teachers, students and practitioners, which favor has been so markedly shown to his book during the nineteen years in which it has been before the medical profession.

Samuel O. L. Potter.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, December, 1905

EXTRACTS FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The author's intention has been to produce a book which would embrace in a single volume the Essentials of practical Materia Medica and Therapeutics, treating of each subject in as concise phraseology as possible consistent with the delineation of every important feature. He has also endeavored to formulate such minute and definite directions for the framing of Prescriptions as might elucidate what to many is a very difficult problem. Furthermore, he has tried to present as much information upon the subject of Pharmacy as every physician should possess, in order to handle the implements of his profession with confidence and to direct their use by others with pharmaceutical accuracy.

The complete fulfilment of these aims would be realized if the book should take rank as a working companion to the advanced student and the junior practitioner, and be deemed by them a reliable guide through the forest of observations and experiments on drug actions and uses, which make progress slow for the already over-burdened mind, when ploughing through the more exhaustive and exhausting text-books.

Although this book is essentially a compilation, as all books of its class must be, there will be found in its pages much original matter derived from the writer's own experience in professional life. The arrangement of the matter will be found to be in some respects unique. After full consideration of the many arrangements of the Materia Medica in vogue, a modified alphabetical plan was adopted, by which the advantages of the alphabetical order might be retained, while permitting the grouping together of agents which are closely related, physiologically and therapeutically, under the title of the principal member of the class — the chief, as it were, of that particular clan. Thus, under the title Amylis Nitris will be found mention also of the Ethyl, Sodium and Potassium Nitrites, and their congener Nitro-glycerin, all of which are closely

PREFACE rO nil: FIRST I mi ION. IX

allied to the first named and to each other, in respect of their actions and uses. A very elaborate section on Drug Classification is placed before the Materia Medica, in order to supplement such deficiencies in grouping as are inevitable in an alphabetical arrangement.

In detailing the characteristics of an important drug, its physical properties and chemical constituents are first briefly enumerated, then its preparations are described in the official language of the pharmacopoeia, usually somewhat abbreviated; any important unofficial preparations are also noted, and the compounds into which it enters are enumerated. Next the physiological action is taken up, its characteristic features being first described; then the actions resulting from an ordinary medicinal close, next those produced by small doses continued, and finally those from a toxic dose. A concise summary of its therapeutical applications closes the article, — the whole presenting, it is hoped, a clearly defined word-picture of the drug under consideration. Every article and preparation comprised in the last edition of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia is fully noticed, while all the prominent unofficial agents receive such mention as their respective importance seems to demand.

The second part of the book is devoted to Pharmacy, and has been written from the standpoint of a conviction that many young practitioners would gladly dispense their own medicines, if provided with a few practical directions on the subject; thereby saving many a dollar from the drug store, preventing in their own practices at least the "renewals" which constitute so bad a feature of modern pharmaceutics, and gaining for themselves a practical acquaintance with their professional weapons which cannot but make them better physicians and more accurate prescribers. In this section of the book Prescription Writing receives full consideration, and many standard formula? are given as samples of prescriptions of each kind in extemporaneous use.

In the third part the subject of Special Therapeutics is treated of elaborately, in the form of an alphabetically arranged Index to the treatment of diseases, as laid down by the accepted authorities. Every indication for the use of a drug is referred to its author by his name or initial, and to the most prominent articles are appended a few selected formulae, to serve as guides to the neophyte in prescribing.

The Appendix contains numerous Tables, comprising diagnostic hints, Latin terms and phrases, formulae for hypodermic use, and metric equivalents; also formulae representing the most noted patent medicines.

The Index has received special attention, from a conviction that, if well made, it is the best part of a good book. Every title, synonym and other reference of importance is included therein, double and treble entries being made in every instance which seemed to require such repetition.

Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, December, 1886.

Table Of Contents

INTRODUCTION,

Pharmacy

Materia Medica

PART II.— PHARMACY AND PRESCRIPTION WRITING, 501 Pharmacopoeias and Dispensatories 501

Metric System, 503

Approximate or Domestic Measures •. 505

Specific Gravity and Specific Volume, 505

Procedure in Writing a Prescription 507

Analysis of a Prescription, 508

Xli TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

Prescriptions, continued,

of Latin in Prescriptions, 510

Principles of Combination 512

Metric Prescriptions, 5*3

Abbreviations, 514

Renewals of Prescriptions, 515

Prescription Blanks, 517

Incompatibility, 517

Chemical Incompatibility, 517

Pharmaceutical Incompatibility 520

Therapeutical Incompatibility, 520

Rules for Avoidance of the Dangers of Incompatibility, 521

Extemporaneous Pharmacy, 522

Filling a Prescription, 523

Stock Solutions, 524

Rules for the Pharmaceutical Student 524

Official Pharmacy , 525

Official Operations, 525

Phamaceutical Preparations, 533

Aceta to Vina, in alphabetical order, 533 _ 5°6

Excipients for Emulsions, 538

Excipients for Mixtures, 548

Excipients for Pills, 552

PART III.— SPECIAL THERAPEUTICS, 5 68 References and Bibliography, 568

Applied Therapeutics, 569

Abasia to Yellow Fever, in alphabetical order, 569-S47

General Principles of Treatment. 765

Antagonists, 765

Antidotes, 765

Poisons, their Antidotes and Antagonists, 769

Temperature in Disease, 812

Average Normal Temperature, 812

Clinical Thermometry, 8! 2

Abnormal Temperature, 812

Temperature in Phthisis, 813

Temperature in Typhoid Fever 813

Temperature in Scarlatina, 813

Temperature in Measles, 813

Temperature in Diphtheria, 813

Co-relation of Pulse and Temperature 813

Clinical Examination of the Urine, 830

Composition of the Urine, 830

Color, Specific Gravity, etc ., 851 i \ i ■- 1 I OF CONTENTS. xit i

PAG!

lY^t- for Acetone, Albumin, Bile, etc 831 83s

Deposits in Urine > s .i5

\i 1 essary Apparatus > s .i5

APPENDIX, 849

Latin Phrasi :, Con ractions, etc., used in Pbj scrlptions, 849

l. \n\ Numerals 861

Latin Verbs, Participles, Prepositions, etc 862

iE-ENDINGS 862

Hypodermic Formuj s. 863

Pateni Mi pi ciMs 865

Tab 1 Differential Diagnosis 869

Forms of Bright'-- 1 lisease 869

Cancer 870

c larditis, Endocarditis and Pericarditis 870

Cerebral Concussion and Compression, 870

Chancre and Chancroid 870

Cholera 871

Croup and Diphtheria, 871

Epilepsy and Hysteria, 871

Gout and Rheumatism 871

Pleurisy and Pneumonia, Intercostal Neuralgia, etc., 872

Pneumonia, Lobular and Lobar, 872

Scarlet Fever, Measles and Smallpox, 872

Typhus and Typhoid Fevers, 873

Varicella and Varioloid 874

Yellow Fever and Bilious Remittent Fever, 874

Tables:

Table of Drops in and Weights of a Fluidrachm, 875

Table of Weights and Measures, 875

Table for Metric Conversions, 876

Table of Equivalent Weights and Measures, Inside of Cover.

Table of Prescription Doses and Quantities, Inside of Cover.

INDEX, 877

EXPLANATION.

For Signs and Abbreviations used, see pages 503 to 515, and page 568.

Average Adult Doses of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, for each drug and preparation, are given

in brackets, thus — [av. gr. x.].

Unofficial Synonyms arc placed in parentheses after the official synonyms.

Numerals unqualified, under the subtitles Preparations in Part I, denote grammes for solids and cubic centimeters for liquids.

ERRATA.

Page 47, line 11 from bottom, — jor simple read similar.

Page Si, line 17 from bottom, — jor NOi 2 read NO n .

Page 141, line 20 from bottom, — jor Caffein read Caffeine.

Page 169, line 2, — jor neurtisi read neuritis.

Page 171, last line, — jor 5 read tijj.

Page 172, line 22, — for Homolropine read Homatropine.

Page 179, line 8 from bottom, — jor Bromine read Bromide.

Page 220, line 23, — add Soap Liniment 5ij at end oj line.

Page 249, line 12; page 308, line n; and page 418, line 26 from bottom, — jor gr. read nj>.

Page 262, line 17 from bottom, — jor 50 read 5.

Page 275, line 7 from bottom, — the paragraph relating to Sodium Glycocholate belongs on

page 276, under the title Fel Bovis.

Page 314, line 8 from bottom, — jor pyrrhol read pyrrol. Page 342, line 24, — jor carbon dioxide water read carbon dioxide and water. Page 355, headline, — jor Olive read Oliy.e.

Page 356, line 12 from bottom, — jor Cryptomine read Cryptopine. Page 357, line 13, — jor Morphne read Morphine.

Page 339, under Incompatibles, — jor 500 read 5, and jor 600 read 6. Page 364, line 2, — jor his read is.

Page 398, line 10 from bottom, — jor official read unofficial. Page 534, line 8 from bottom, — jor oijss read ojss.

Page 530, line 2 from bottom, — jor Pigments read Pigmenta. Page 376, line 9, — jor fort he read for the.

Page 708, line 16, — jor Acetanilid read Acetanilide.

Introduction

Drugs (drugan, to dry), — is a term which was formerly applied to dried medicinal plants, and is still employed by writers and others in that sense. By extension, however, it has been made to cover all material substances used for the treatment of disease, including remedial agents from the animal and mineral kingdoms as well as those belonging to the vegetable kingdom.

Pharmacology (<fdp,aay.ov, a drug, i.&yoq, a discourse), — is the science which treats of drugs and therefore properly embraces in its scope all of materia medica and therapeutics relating to drugs. By some writers this term is employed in a more restricted sense, including only the physiological action of drugs, a subject which is more correctly designated by the word Pharmacodynamics (see below).

Pharmacy is the name of the art which supplements the science of pharmacology, namely — the art of preparing drugs according to the requirements of the pharmacologist and of dispensing them on the prescriptions of the therapeutist. It includes a thorough knowledge of the materia medica, an acquaintance with the theories and manipulations of chemistry and an intimate practical experience in many operations peculiar to itself.

Materia Medica is the branch of Pharmacology which treats of the substances used as medicines and describes their origin, composition, physical characteristics, chemical properties, modes of preparation and administration, also their physiological and toxicological actions. Two of its divisions are —

Pharmacodynamics ((pap^uaKov, a drug, Siiua/uf, power), means the discussion of the physiological action of drugs, which is their modifying power upon the normal physiological activity of the human organism.

Toxicology (xosck6v, a poison, Xo-jroc, a discourse), describes the effects of drugs administered in poisonous doses, and treats of the antagonists and antidotes by which their effects may be neutralized or the poisons themselves rendered innocuous and removed from the organism.

Therapeutics {Ospa-svsiv, to attend upon), comprises all the science .and art of healing, and includes the use of medicines and all other agents and measures which are 'known to alleviate or cure disease. The operations of Nature herself are properly embraced in the general term Therapeutics, which may be subdivided as follows: —

Natural Therapeutics, includes the operations of the Vis Medlcatrix Natura, the healing power of Nature, — those modes and processes of heal-

2 INTRODUCTION.

ing which occur independently of art and tend to the spontaneous decline and cure of disease. There is no scientific dogma better established than this, that the living organism is in itself adequate to the cure oj all its curable disorders. This natural law sustains the medical skeptic in his infidelity as to the value of medicines, enables the homeopathist to report his sugar-cures, and helps all physicians out of more close places in practice than they are generally willing to acknowledge. This part of the subject is taught only casually in the schools, in connection with pathology and the other subjects embraced in the chair of Principles and Practice of Medicine, but it deserves a special chair and more systematic treatment than it receives.

Applied Therapeutics embraces the application by Art of agents foreign to the living organism, for the purpose of aiding Nature to restore the body to a healthy condition. This division is the portion of the subject which is taught separately and systematically in the schools, and therefore is alone considered in the following pages.

Other divisions of the general subject employed in professional literature and conversation are those entitled Empirical Therapeutics and Rational Therapeutics.

Empirical Therapeutics is a term applied to the use of medicinal or other therapeutical agents for the sole reason that they have been tried previously with successful results in cases apparently identical with the one under treatment. By those who advocate this method it is styled the Therapeutics of Experience, and is claimed to be an accumulation of means of combating disease simply by observation and experiment independently of physio-pathological reasoning (Hartshorne). It was necessarily the original method in therapeutics, has conferred many rich gifts upon medical science, and has been advocated by many great physicians, its latest and ablest expounder being the eminent and lamented Niemeyer.

The use of Opium to relieve pain, of Cinchona for malarial fevers, of Colchicum in gout, of Potassium Iodide in syphilis, of the Bromides in epilepsy, and of Cod-liver Oil in phthisis, are examples of the empirical use of remedies. But, after all has been said for it that can be said, the fact remains that it is essentially an unscientific method, a mere elaboration of the prevailing popular habit of recommending Mrs. A. to use pepper tea, because it cured Mrs. B. of "the very same trouble." Permitted to reign supreme, it would be destructive to all exactness in therapeutical progress. The so-called "experience" of one observer is too often overbalanced by the experience of another equally competent and trustworthy; and as few are encouraged to record their failures with remedies, there can be no scientific comparison of the failures with the reported successes. For this reason empirical methods would tend to a minimum degree of accuracy in a science which, in the very nature of things, can never be an exact one; — though undoubtedly such methods will always prevail to some extent.

Rational Therapeutics means the use of remedies for reasons based on a knowledge of the pathological conditions present in the subject and the physiological action of the agent employed. This method is the very antithesis of empiricism, and has been the leading idea in every revolt against empirical therapeutics in the past. Humoralism, Chemicism, Solidism, Stimulism, Galen-

INTRODUCTION. 3

ism in the 2d century, Paracelcism in the 16th, and Hahnemannism in the 10th, all originated in efforts to find a more rational system of administering medirines than the prevailing empiricism of the day.

The illustrious Albrecht von Haller, the father of Physiology and the author of the doctrine of Irritability, was the real originator of modern physiological therapeutics. In the preface to his Swiss Pharmacopoeia {circa A.D. 1755), occur the following remarkable directions, — the first recorded of their kind: —

"In the first place the remedy is to be tried on the healthy body, without any foreign substance mixed with it; having been examined as to its odor and taste, a small dose is to be taken, and the attention directed to all effects which thereupon occur; such as upon the pulse, the temperature, the respiration, the excretions. Having thereby adduced their obvious phenomena in health, you may pass on to experiment upon the sick body."

Forty or more years after these rules were laid down ex cathedra by Haller, the central idea therein was incorporated as one of the main pillars into a medical edifice then being erected in Germany. In the course of construction this pillar became so hidden beneath a superstructure of palpable absurdities, that the medical profession, in its anxiety to steer clear of the whole mass, almost forgot the corner-stone of truth appropriated from the teachings of one of its own greatest teachers. While, however, the mass of the medical profession, blinded by prejudice, turned away from everything which savored of drug-experiment, a few physicians were quietly working on the lines of Haller's dogma that drug-proving is the only true basis 0} drug-using. As a result of their labors the present generation sees the development of an idea, announced nearly 150 \ ears ago, but now inspiring the minds of teachers and students all over the civilized world. Medical colleges are recognizing physiological drug-experimentation as a part of their regular curricula; laboratories are fitted up in many of the schools with costly instruments of precision, for the more exact prosecution of this study; and under the direction of such men as* Wood, Ringer, Murrell, Brunton, Hildebrandt, Fraser, Binz, Liebermeister, Husemann, Schmiedeberg, etc., systematic researches are being conducted upon animals to ascertain the physiological action of every agent hitherto used in medicine. The alkaloids and other active principles of vegetable drugs, together with the numerous synthetic compounds which chemistry is giving to medicine, are subjected to the same rigid experimentation. The medical press of every civilized country is filled with the results of these labors, and no medical student is permitted to pass the graduating ordeal until he has mastered the essential characteristics of the physiological action of the important medicaments so far as established. What has hitherto been the conviction of but a few, is daily gowing into a fixed canon of professional belief, that physiological experimentation with drugs must be the basis of their therapeutical employment, and that all real advance towards the establishment of therapeutics as a science, must be made upon the lines laid down by Haller, namely, drug-proving upon the healthy human organism. Still, in the words of Brown-Sequard, "Therapeutics will cease to be empirical, only when this last kind of knowledge shall be fully obtained;" but its fulness will never be fully realized unless the results have been thoroughly considered with regard to the differences due to the action of drugs in different doses on (he human organism in health and disease.

A thoroughly-prepared materia medica of half-a-dozen standard drugs, such as Aconite, Arsenic, Belladonna, Mercury, Opium and Quinine, based upon their actions and uses in different doses and under different states of the organism, would be of more real value to the physician who wishes to do his work accurately and with his eyes open, than all the contents of the dispensatories, plus the entire literature of the "new remedies," and every symptom in the ten quarto volumes of the largely discredited and partly repudiated homeopathic materia medica. If medical students would devote but one month of their annual college vacation to the personal investigation of some one feature of the action of some one drug, under such safe-guards against error as would secure the acceptance of the resulting observations, a mine of therapeutic gold would soon yield its solid truth to eager eyes. Formally laid down by Haller in 1755, cultivated to some extent by Alexander in 1768, Crumpe in 1793, Thommassini, Curtis, etc., urged by John Hunter, Sir Thomas Watson, Dr. King Chambers, and many other luminaries of the medical profession, the scientifically guarded proving of drugs on the human organism has lain, like the similar work of Jenner, neglected these many years, waiting for another Koch to re-inaugurate the work.

CONSTITUENTS OF ORGANIC DRUGS.

Drugs are derived from all the three kingdoms of nature. Those which belong to the mineral kingdom may be termed inorganic drugs and are resolved by chemical analysis directly into their ultimate principles, the elementary bodies of which they are composed. Organic drugs are those which are taken from the animal and vegetable kingdoms. They are to some extent composed of inorganic materials (water, gases, salts, etc.), but chiefly consist of organic compounds (proximate principles) obtained by a proximate analysis. The further reduction of these proximate principles to their elementary constituents shows that Carbon plays the leading role therein, associated with Hydrogen, Oxvgen. Nitrogen and other elements. The proximate principles of vegetable drugs may be divided into insoluble and soluble groups; the first containing those

CONSTITUENTS OF ORGANIC DRICS. 5

which resist the action of ordinary solvents, the second including those which may be dissolved in suitable menstrua and thereby separated from those which arc not soluble in a particular menstruum.

The Insoluble Constituents are substances which make up the cell-walls of vegetable drugs, namely — Cellulin (Cellulose), Lignin and Sclcrogen. They are extremely intractable to the action of solvents and yet find places in the materia medica under various forms. Cellulin in the form of Cotton is used extensively by both the surgeon and the pharmacist, and by the action of strong acids or alkalies thereon, there is obtained Pyroxylin (Gun-cotton), which dissolved in ether makes Collodion. By the destructive distillation of cellulin and lignin a large number of solid, liquid and gaseous products are obtained, including aceticacid, methylic alcohol, phenol, creosote and tar. From their natural decomposition result amber, coal, coal-tar and the many derivatives of the latter substance. The Soluble Constituents include some principles which are medicinally inert and also many active principles.

The Active Principles include carbohydrates, alkaloids, glucosides, neutral principles, organic acids, resins, fixed oils and fats, waxes, volatile oils, camphors, miscellaneous principles (phenols, ketones, etc.), protein bodies (albuminoids) and ferments. Some of these are not proximate principles from the strict chemical point of view, as they are not simple bodies (e. g., fixed oils, fats, waxes, and many of the volatile oils), but for the purposes of the materia medica it is convenient to so classify them. Others are active chiefly as foods, though in some cases they are employed as medicinal agents. For the methods of extracting the soluble principles from drugs see the articles entitled Maceration and Percolation, in Part II of this book.

Carbohydrates are properly regarded as foods rather than as medicines, yet many of them possess remedial qualities due to their neutral, bland, demulcent, lubricant, protective or soothing action. They include the Amyloids, cellulose, starch, dextrin, inulin, etc., the Sugars, as glucose, levulose, lactose (milk sugar), maltose (malt sugar), saccharose (cane sugar), etc., and the Gums and Pectin Bodies, as arabin, pectin, bassorin, cerasin, etc.

Gums are not proximate principles but amorphous, transparent substances which are widely disseminated in plants and yield Muck Acid when treated with nitric acid. They form sticky preparations with water and are precipitated by alcohol. Arabin is the main constituent of soluble gums. Bassorin, which swells up in water, is one of the constituents of gum tragacanth, also of cherry and plum gums. [Compare the articles entitled Acacia and Tragacantha, in Part I.]

Alkaloids (alkali, e\8o-;, resemblance) — are organic basic substances existing in many plants, usually in combination with organic acids. They readily combine with acids to form crystalline salts which are soluble in water, the alkaloids themselves being almost insoluble therein though dissolving in alcohol. They are odorless, of more or less bitter taste, and generally possess powerful physiological actions. They are easily decomposed by alkalies or alkaline carbonates, and are precipitated from their solutions by several reagents, including iodine in a solution of potassium iodide, potassio-mercuric iodide, auric chloride, also picric, tannic, phospho-molybdic and phospho-tungstic acids. Their Latin names terminate in — ina, their English names in — ine, as Morphina, Morphine.

Alkaloids are sometimes called organic or vegetable alkalies, to distinguish them from the inorganic or mineral alkalies, which they resemble in little ex cept their reaction and basic qualities. The term artificial alkaloid is applie to secondary alkaloids derived from natural ones, as Apomorphine. The term synthetic alkaloid should be restricted to those which occur in nature but have been prepared synthetically, and should never be applied to bases which are only obtained by synthesis and do not occur naturally, as Antipyrine, Thallin, etc.

Chemically the alkaloids may be regarded as derivatives of Ammonia (NH,) or ammonias in which one or more atoms of H are replaced by various radicles. They are believed to be decomposition products of vegetable albumin occurring in the plant-cells during the process of growth. They all contain the elements C, H and N; most of them also contain O (amides), and usually occur as crystalline solids which (except Berberine) are colorless. A few containing O occur as liquids, namely — Lobeline, Lupuline, Muscarine, Pelletierine and Pilocarpine. Some are devoid of O (amines) and occur as volatile, oily liquids, namely — Coniine, Nicotine, Piperidine, Pyridine, Sparteine and Trimethylamine In their chemical composition the latter are closely related to Pyridine, C 5 H 5 N, an alkaloid which seems to underlie the molecular structure of many others. Some of them may be synthetically prepared from the pyridine bases (picoline, collidine, etc.). By changing the chemical constitution of an alkaloid its physiological action can be completely altered.

Allied to the alkaloids are the organic products termed Leucomaines and Ptomaines, the former being alkaloidal substances produced by the decomposition of albuminous matter in the living animal tissues during the normal destructive metamorphosis, the latter being similar substances produced by the process of putrefaction. Many of the ptomaines are identical with certain vegetable alkaloids.

Many so-called alkaloids are in reality mixtures of different alkaloids, e. g., Veratrine. Some plants contain more alkaloids than one, including a second which may be similar in action to the first but weaker (as Brucine) or antagonistic in action to the principal one (as Calabarine).

The first alkaloid discovered was Morphine, isolated and described by the apothecary Sertiirner in 1816. Within sixteen years after that date Strychnine, Brucine, Quinine, Cinchonine, Narcotine, Codeine, Veratrine, Coniine, Atropine, Nicotine, Aconitine and Hyoscyamine were discovered by different chemists.

Incompatible with the alkaloids are: Alkalies, Alkali Carbonates and Bicarbonate?, Benzoates, Bichromates, Bromides of the alkalies, Borax, Cyanides, Gold Chloride, Ichthyol, Iodides, Mercuric Chloride, Oxalic Acid, Picric Acid, Piperazin, Potassio-mercuric Iodide (when acacia is absent), Oxidizers, Salicylates, Sodium Phosphate, Tannic Acid. Many alkaloids are physiologically incompatible with others.

Twenty-four alkaloids are official, under either their own names or those of their salts, including Pelletierine and Veratrine, which are described as mixtures of alkaloids. They are as follows: —

Aconitina, Aconitine, — from Aconitum Napellus.

Apomorphina, Apomorphine, — a derivative of the alkaloid Morphine.

Atropina, Atropine, — from Belladonna and some allied plants.

Caffeina, Caffeine, — the active principle of Caffea, the coffee plant.

Cinchonina, Cinchonine, — a minor alkaloid from Cinchona (Peruvian Bark).

Cinchonidina, Cinchonidine, — another alkaloid from Cinchona.

Cocaina, Cocaine, — from the plant Erythroxylon Coca.

Codeina, Codeine, — the second in rank of the Opium alkaloids.

Colchicina, Colchicine, — the active principle of Colchicum.

Homatropina, Homatropine, — a derivative of the alkaloid Atropine.

Hydrastina, Hydrastine, — from Hydrastis canadensis.

Hydrastinina, Hydrastinine, — a derivative of Hydrastine.

Hyoscina, Hyoscine, — one of the alkaloids of Hyoscyamus (Henbane)

Hyoscyamina, Hyoscyamine, — another alkaloid from Hyoscyamus.

Morphina, Morphine, — the principal alkaloid of Opium.

I'ONSl'UTKXTS oi- oruaxic drugs. 7

•

Pelletierina, PelleHerine, — a mixture of alkaloids obtained from Granatum (Pomegranate)

Physostigmina, Physosligmine, — also called Eserine, — from Physostigma. Pilocarpina, Pilocarpine, — the principal alkaloid of Pilocarpus (Jaborandi) Piperina, Piperine, — a feeble base obtained from Pepper. Quinina, Quinine, — the principal alkaloid of Cinchona (Peruvian Bark). Scopolamina, Scopolamine, — from plants of the Solanacece, identical with Hyoscine. Sparteina, Sparteine, — a volatile alkaloid from Scoparius. Strychnina, Strychnine, — the principal alkaloid of Nux Vomica. Veratrina, Ycratrine, — a mixture of alkaloids from Asagnea officinalis.