BOTANY AND MEDICINE 45 ^ 



Laboratory investigations which employ tissue tests both in vitro and in 

 living animals do show rather positive muscle sedative effects when highly 

 purified extracts of all these plants are biologically tested. For example, 

 Viburnum and Potentilla extracts show about equal activity to that of papav- 

 erine in isolated uterine and intestinal muscle strips. Several components of 

 Potentilla (silvery cinquefoil) have been found to have approximately the 

 same results. Petroleum ether extracts of the bark from Jamaica dogwood 

 show even better relaxant activity and give indication of possessing a de- 

 pressant effect on the nervous system. 



One of the very interesting plant substances that has recently invited con- 

 siderable interest along these lines is licorice root, Glycyrrhiza glabra. A num- 

 ber of investigators in Holland, Belgium, Scotland, and in the United States 

 during the past three or four years have reported clinical evidence for a 

 desoxycorticosterone-like (Doca) activity in licorice root. Although the 

 degree of effect did not match that of the pure adrenal-gland hormone, never- 

 theless it has prompted further investigation of the true activity of the "old" 

 botanical drug licorice in the treatment of adrenal hypo function, particularly 

 Addison's disease. An estrogenic activity and an extract which gave chemical 

 tests for estriol have been reported for licorice root by Costello and Lynn in 

 the United States. 



Along with these investigations some attention has recently been given to 

 antispasmodic and anti-ulcer activities which Nelemans and Molhuysen in 

 Europe have shown by in vitro tests to exist in licorice root extracts. Many 

 extract fractions of the root have been tested in our laboratories, and several 

 of these have shown very consistent antispasmodic effects that can be observed 

 in rat and guinea pig intestinal and uterine muscle strips. This is greater than 

 papaverine and about one-fiftieth that of atropine. The anti-ulcer activity of 

 the drug is currently being investigated by at least two major pharmaceutical 

 companies. It will be most interesting to follow progress in this approach, for 

 to date no significant toxic effect has been attributed to the drug. The major 

 problem is one of chemical isolation, for often when pure crystalline com- 

 pounds are obtained from plant drugs of this type, they fail to show sig- 

 nificantly the desired activity. As is often the case, botanical investigations 

 of new species of drug plants and their sources proceed rapidly when the 

 slightest evidence of therapeutic activity is shown, only to await the skills 

 of a chemist for their more practical application. 



Miscellaneous. A number of other drug plants have recently turned up with 

 rather extraordinary new uses apart from those previously mentioned. For 

 example, the irritating resin of the May apple. Podophyllum peltatum, which 

 has long been employed as a cathartic and which years ago was used to 

 destroy venereal warts, has now yielded three very active compounds, called 

 peltatins. These have been found to destroy cancerous tumors in mice, and 

 the application of such activity is being investigated in humans. 



