Kaiisai> Academy of Science. 181 



STRAMONIUM. 



L. D. Haveniiill. 



SOME time ago my attention was called to the fact that 

 enormous quantities of stramonium are found growing 

 throughout the United States, seemingly for no other purpose 

 than to furnish shade for hogs and hens and to perhaps now 

 and then poison a cow or two. 



As this plant is a valuable one medicinally, the question 

 naturally arose, Why does our supply of it as a drug come from 

 Europe? 



Since drugs grown under different climatic conditions are 

 known to vary considerably in therapeutic activity, it was 

 thought that this might account for it and that the American- 

 grown drug was not of sufficient value medicinally. 



Reference to the analyses of^over 100 lots of leaves of this 

 plant, imported from Europe, showed a range from 0.20 per- 

 cent to 0.57 percent of mydriatic alkaloids, with a mean close 

 to the present pharmacopoeial requirement of 0.35 percent. 



A quantity of stramonium leaves that were collected by me 

 from plants growing in a hog lot in Kendall county, Illinois, in 

 the fall of 1911, yielded 0.46 percent of mydriatic alkaloids by 

 the pharmacopneial method of assay. 



In the latter part of September, 1914, I collected a quantity 

 of stramonium leaves from, plants growing in a barnyard on 

 the south slope of Blue mound, near Lawrence, Kan. It will 

 be remembered that that season was a very dry one. The 

 plants were past flowering and the capsules were well de- 

 veloped. The leaves were small and somewhat withered and in 

 some cases beginning to fall. These leaves were spread out and 

 dried in a warm attic. This sample, when analyzed, was found 

 to contain 16.8 percent of ash and 0.213 percent of alkaloids, 

 both calculated to a basis of moisture-free drug. The yield 

 of alkaloids in this sample was below the pharmacopoeial re- 

 quirement. It is thought that the age of the plants, together 

 with their exposure to heat and drought, might account for the 

 low alkaloidal content. 



Later that same year, October 26, some stramonium was 

 found growing in a potato patch in the 1,000 block on Illinois 

 -treet in the city of Lawrence. These plants had evidently 



