164 APPENDIX. 
prepared at Market Deeping, in Lincolnshire, An extract of that 
variety of the cultivated plant known as Cos lettuce was also 
examined. They all contained an alkaloid which had a very marked 
power of dilating the pupil of the eye. Finally, a dried specimen of 
wild lottuce, cblloctad when in flower, was examined. It contained 
a mydriatic alkaloi 
The impure alkaloid obtained*from the extract was a light brown 
syrup, which possessed powerful mydriatic properties. In order to 
purify it, it was converted into the oxalate, The alkaloid recovered 
from the pure oxalate, when crystallized from chloroform, closely 
resembled hyoscyamine, both in appearance and in melting point. 
The aurochloride was then produced by the usual methods, an¢ this, 
after recrystallization, was obtained in the shining flat needles 
characteristic of the aurochloride of hyoseyamine. The estimation of 
the gold and the base in this compound showed that the alkaloid was 
one of three isomeric mydriatic alkaloids, having the formula 
C'H**NO®, while its melting point was 159-75° (corr.), and closely 
_ corresponded with that ascribed by Ladenburg to the aurochloride of 
hyoscyamine. The plant does not appear to contain a second 
mydriatic alkaloid, although it must be remembered that only small 
quantities of material were operated upon. 
The author has just shown that both wild and oubliveiod varieties 
of lettuce, especially when the flowering stage is reached, contain 
hyoscyamine, the mydriatic alkaloid oceurring in Hyoscyamus niger, 
Atropa Belladonna, and other plants belonging to the natural order 
Solanacea, and it is probable that to the presence of this alkaloid the 
sedative and anodyne properties of extract of lettuec are due. 
That this important constituent has been until now overlooked is 
egos due to the fact that in chemical investigations upon lettuce 
dried milk sap, lactucarium, has alone been exam ined, although 
He eke as a sedative and anodyne is by no means established. The 
author found that lactucarium of both English and German manu- 
facture was devoid of mydriatic properties and contained no alkaloi 
whatever, 
The fact that lettuce contains a poiso nous alkaloid is not of great 
importance in connection with its use as a vegetable, since it is only 
used for this purpose in the early stages of its growth, before the 
bitter milk has been produced, when the hyoscya mine is only present, 
if at all, in minute quantities, The amount of mydriatic alkaloid in 
