140 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. — SUB-SECTIO>:, PHARMACY. 



putrefactive changes occurring either before or during extraction. What 

 is quite certain is that good, dry ergot contains not merely ergotoxine, 

 but also the bases in question, though the proportion of these latter 

 may well be increased in the preparation of such a product as the liquid 

 extract of the B.P., and still more so in the dialized preparations. It 

 may further be claimed that the substance responsible for each of the 

 various physiological actions hitherto suggested as a basis of standard- 

 ization, has been isolated and identified. The effect on the cock's comb 

 was given practical application for standardization by Houghton, who 

 gave details by observance of which a quantitative indication was 

 obtainable. This has been recently verified by Edmunds and Hale. 

 This action, like the " vasomotor reversal " described by Dale, is due to 

 ergotoxine, and, while the practice of different observers may leda 

 them to prefer one or other of these methods, they are testing, in either 

 case, for ergotoxine only. When the measurement of pressor effect, 

 in dog or cat, as recommended by Wood and by Cronyn and Henderson 

 in America, and by Dixon, Goodall, and others in England, is adopted 

 as an index of activity, the measurement appears to be one of ergo- 

 toxine + " tyramine " in the Qase of the U.S.P fluid extract, almost 

 wholly of " tyramine " in the case of the liquid extracts of the British 

 Pharmacopoeia Kehrer's method, again, if a cat's uterus be used, is 

 apparently a measurement of " ergamine " content only ; on the 

 other hand, the isolated guinea-pig's uterus is exquisitely sensitive to 

 ergotoxine as well as to " ergamine." It will doubtless be possible 

 by a combination of methods to work out a rational system of ergot 

 standardization when it is once decided which of the principles are 

 therapeutically desirable, and in what relative proportions they should 

 occur. What is needed above all for the settlement of this aspect of 

 the ergot problem is an accumulation of accurate clinical observation 

 with the pure active principles. Meanwhile, it may be said that results 

 hitherto available appear to point to the superiority of a preparation 

 containing the three chief active principles in appropriate proportions, 

 as compared with any one of them separately. It should be further 

 remembered that ergotoxine is the only one of them for which ergot is 

 needed. The others are much more easily obtained by synthesis in 

 the laboratory, and it may be assumed that the ideal preparation is one 

 containing a definite quantity of pure ergotoxine from ergot, with the 

 amines added in due amount. A preparation containing 1 mgm. of 

 ergotoxine to 5 mgms. of " tyramine " and 0*05 mgms. of " ergamine '* 

 has given highly satisfactory results in practice. But, pending more 

 decisive clinical information, it may be suggested that no one method 

 of standardization can claim exclusive value or unquestioned superiority, < 

 whatever be its accuracy in determining the proportion of one or more 

 of the active principles. 



