452 YOUNGKEN, JR. 



The juice from the "old" drug Aloe, again the source of a well-established 

 cathartic, has now been applied in the treatment of atomic-radiation burns. 

 Collins and Collins reported similar effects in the treatment of X-ray burns 

 as early as 1935, and Rowe in 1941 showed the curative principles to be 

 present in the rind and pulp of the plant leaves. It is interesting to note that 

 this extractive has now proven to be the only effective agent in the healing 

 of the peculiar burns inflicted on the natives of the South Pacific during the 

 fallout of radiation particles from atomic-bomb explosions in that area a 

 few years ago. 



Mescaline, a narcotic-like alkaloid from a cactus, Lophophora mlUamsii 

 (mescal buttons, or peyote), growing in southwestern U.S.A., is being cur- 

 rently investigated in humans for its effects on the cerebral centers, an activity 

 which produces initial stimulation accompanied by hallucinations and later 

 intense cerebral depression. Such activity under carefully controlled conditions 

 can serve as a kind of chemical and biological tool for inducing effects against 

 which to measure the psychiatric activity of the tranquillizing drugs rauwolfia 

 and Chlorpromazine. Indeed, the psychic effects of any drug are difficult to 

 assess without some critical evaluation that can be measured and controlled. 

 It is, of course, too early to evaluate completely so specialized a technique as 

 would be involved by the use of a drug such as mescaline to produce a 

 schizophrenic state. 



2. The re-investigation of well-established plant compounds. Ster- 

 oid sapogenins. Two very widely distributed classes of chemical compounds 

 known to exist in plants are the steroids and alkaloids. Many of these lend 

 themselves to chemical modification by various means. Among the steroids 

 many have recently been extracted from several species of Yucca, Agave, 

 Dioscorea, and Strophanthus, and these have been employed for chemical 

 and biosynthetic purposes. They are chemically called sapogenins. A great 

 many sapogenins hemolyze red blood cells and therefore are toxic to humans. 

 However, several are now found to possess a useful "precursor" value in the 

 chemical synthesis of medicinal agents as the adrenal hormones, cortisone, 

 and hydrocortisone. This was first shown about 1948 by the chemists at 

 Merck Chemical Laboratories and in other pharmaceutical laboratories. As 

 a result since that time more than two thousand species of plants have been 

 screened for sapogenin-cortisone precursors under the leadership of the East- 

 ern Regional Research Laboratory group of the U.S.D.A. Others have also 

 investigated plants for such compounds which would serve as chemical start- 

 ing materials in corticosterone synthesis. At the present time progesterone is 

 the principal intermediate in cortisone synthesis, but there are four sapogenins 

 which are used for progesterone synthesis. One of these, diosgenin from the 

 "old" botanical drug Dioscorea, Mexican yam, is most useful in this respect. 

 From this finding one is set to speculating whether the natives of Mexico, 

 Central America, and Africa, where most of these plants grow, weren't cor- 



