Youngken • Botany and Medicine 



151 



ics.—A number of botanicals have in 

 the past been emploxed for sedative 

 effects in intestinal and stomach 

 cramps and essential or functional dys- 

 menorrhea. Atropine and atropine-like 

 s\nthetics certainlv lead the field of 

 anti-spasmodics today. But the side ef- 

 fects from most of these still limit their 

 applications. Plant drugs such as Vi- 

 burnum, Aletris, Helonia, Blessed this- 

 tle, Jamaica dogwood {Piscidia spp.), 

 and Potentilla (Silverweed) are exam- 

 ples of a few botanicals that have en- 

 tered into pharmaceutical formulations 

 for anti-spasmodic purposes. 



Laborator)^ investigations which 

 employ tissue tests both in vitro and 

 in living animals do show rather posi- 

 tive muscle sedative effects when 

 highly purified extracts of all of these 

 plants are biologically tested. For ex- 

 ample, Viburnum and Potentilla ex- 

 tracts show about equal activity to that 

 of papaverine in isolated uterine and 

 intestinal muscle strips. Several com- 

 ponents of Potentilla (Silvery cinque- 

 foil ) have been found to have approxi- 

 mately the same results. Petroleum 

 ether extracts of the bark from Jamaica 

 dogwood show even better relaxant ac- 

 tivit}' and give indication of possessing 

 a depressant effect on the nervous sys- 

 tem. 



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. 



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 bums. 

 Collins and Collins reported similar ef- 

 fects in the treatment of X-ray bums 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 extrac- 

 tive has now proven to be the only 

 eflfective 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 williamsii 

 (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 ac- 

 tivity which produces initial stimula- 

 tion accompanied by hallucinations 

 and later intense cerebral depression. 

 Such activity under carefully controlled 

 conditions can serve as a kind of chem- 

 ical and biological tool for inducing 

 effects against which to measure the 

 psychiatric activity of the tranquillizing 

 drugs Rauwolfia and Chlorpromazine. 



2. The re-investigation of well-es- 

 tablished plant compounds.— Stcrord 

 sapogenins. — Two very widely distrib- 

 uted classes of chemical compounds 

 known to exist in plants are the ster- 

 oids and alkaloids. Among the steroids 

 many have recently been extracted 

 from several species of Yucca, Agave, 

 Dioscorea and Strophanthus, and these 

 have been emplo\ed for chemical and 

 biosynthetic purposes. They are chem- 

 ically 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, corti- 

 sone and h\ drocortisone. At the present 

 time progesterone is the principal in- 

 termediate in cortisone S}nthcsis but 



