Dk. Mitchell on the Physiological mictions of Spar tine and Scoparine. 183 



All that I would say as the result of these experiments is, that I 

 would think spartine worthy of a trial in tetanus or hydrophobia ; but in 

 making such a trial, my hopes of success would not be very high, for I 

 have a resistless conviction that the diseases are scarcely amenable to 

 treatment. Dismissing, however, the practical view, I rest the interest 

 of these facts on their scientific or physiological aspect. One train of 

 symptoms is induced by one substance, and an opposite by another ; and 

 it is found that the effects of the first, lohen manifested by an animal, can 

 be removed, or, so to speak, neutralised by the exhibition of the second. 



We have thus shown in broom the existence of two principles, the one 

 diuretic and the other narcotic. In employing, therefore, a decoction of 

 broom, as has hitherto been the practice in dropsical and other aifections, 

 we subject the patient to the narcotic influence of the spartine, as well as 

 to the diuretic effects of the scoparine, a result which might not be desir- 

 able, but which is not of mucli consequence in this particular case, since 

 the amount of spartine given in the decoction is exceedingly trifling. I 

 have lately observed, however, that where it was administered freely, its 

 soporific qualities were rendered suSiciently evident. To avoid these I 

 do not think it necessary to employ chemically pure scoparine. If a 

 simple decoction be evaporated to dryness on the water bath, then treated 

 with a little dilute hydrochloric acid, the mixture thrown upon a filter, 

 and washed with cold water, almost the whole of the spartine will be 

 removed, and the dark green gelatinous mass remaining on the filter will 

 be found to possess the diuretic without the narcotic properties of the 

 plant. 



I have said that, in the case of broom, I do not think this separation of 

 much value, as regards the practice of medicine, and I have given my 

 reasons. It might have been otherwise, however. We have many plants 

 in the materia medica possessing known complex actions, depending (as I 

 am inclined to believe) on principles of definite chemical characters, which 

 are separable, and to possess these separated would surely be a benefit. 

 ThxLS, we have a plant exerting a physiological action, which I shall call 

 ABC; and we give it in a case for its action A, where its actions 

 B and C, are contra-indicated. To say the very least, we have done a 

 thing that was far from desirable, and we should certainly have been 

 gainers, great gainers, had it been in our power to administer A alone, 

 when we wanted its effects alone ; and so also, in like manner, B and G 

 alone, when we desired llieir uncomplicated effects. Regarded in this 

 light only, such researches as the present are proved to be of importance, 

 and of practical importance too, although in one case it may be negative, 

 and in another positive. 



I offer a further illustration of its importance. There is a very great 

 diversity of opinion about the efficiency of broom as a diuretic. Accord- 

 ing to Dr. Pcreira, it never fails to act upon the kidneys, and is the most 

 certain of all diuretics in dropsies ; and he states that he cannot call to 

 mind a single instance in which it failed. Mead, CuUen, and Pearson, 



Vol. III.-No. 3. 4 



