PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. — SUB-SECTION, PHARMACY. 139 



They chose for the investigation the ergot extract which produced 

 Kehrer's effect most intensely, viz., the " Ergotinum Dialysatum" of 

 Wernich. In the end they succeeded in isolating a small quantity of 

 the crystalline picrate of a base which, while it resembled histidine in 

 its properties of solubility and precipitation by reagents, and gave the 

 diazo-reaction of Pauly with great intensity, differed from histidine in 

 producing Kehrer's effect in extreme dilutions, whereas histidine is 

 quite inert in this direction. It was a natural supposition that the base 

 might bear the same relation to histidine as " tyramine " to " tyrosine." 

 By another of the curious coincidences which have occurred in the 

 course of this investigation, the same base had been obtained from 

 ergot by Kutscher simultaneously and independently. At the same 

 time, Ackermann, by putrefaction of a broth containing histidine, had 

 obtained a sipply of the base which res : Its when histidine loses CO2. 

 Barger and Dale found the histidine derivative identical with their ergot 

 base, while Ackermann and Kutscher concluded that the two were 

 similar, but not identical. It has since been shown that the apparent 

 difference in physiological action, on which Ackermann and Kutscher 

 based this conclusion, was due to an unsuspected variation of the 

 conditions of experiment, and it may be regarded as estabUshed that 

 the principle in ergot mainly responsible for its intense tonic action on 

 isolated uterine muscle is iminazolylethylamine {i.e., histidine minus 

 CO2). This is now prepared synthetically, and obtainable in commerce 

 as "ergamine." Its action has been investigated and described by Dale 

 and Laidlaw, who have drawn attention to the interesting similarity 

 between the effects which it produces on intravenous injection, and 

 those which follow the injection of various tissue extracts and form 

 the main feature in the clinical picture of the " anaphylactic shock." 

 At the same time it has been demonstrated that the base can be given 

 hypodermically in small doses without producing bad symptoms, but 

 with marked effect on the uterus. 



Engeland and Kutscher subsequently isolated from ergot agmatine, 

 the analogous amine from arginine, and attributed to it a similar 

 action. According to Dale and Laidlaw, the efiect of agmatine is very 

 weak, and it cannot contribute in any significant degree to the action 

 of ergot. 



It is not suggested, of course, that all the constituents possessing a 

 physiological action of any kind which occur in any sample of ergot 

 or its extracts have been isolated and identified. On the contrary, it 

 has been obvious, from the later portion especially of Barger and Dale's 

 work on this subject, that the casual occurrence of unusual bases is only to 

 be expected in extracts of a fungus which shows many similarities in its 

 ^ction to certain putrefactive bacteria. It is even uncertain, in any 

 particular case, how much of the active amine constituent must be 

 attributed to the metabolism of the ergot itself, how much to superadded 



