530 JABORANDI PILOCARPISTE 



have no notable in-contact effect on the skin or mucous 

 membranes, but when absorbed they stimulate glandular 

 secretion more promptly, energetically, and generally than 

 any other known drugs. The salivary, lachrymal, bronchial, 

 gastric, pancreatic, and intestinal secretions are increased, 

 the milk, bile, and urine, to only a slight extent. The 

 cutaneous perspiratory glands are not so actively stimulated 

 in the lower animals as in man. They stimulate the 

 efferent nerve-endings of involuntary muscles, while large 

 toxic doses impair the irritability of voluntary muscles 

 and motor nerves by their central action. They are 

 prescribed as eliminatives in catarrhal, pneumonic, and 

 rheumatic cases, and in torpidity and obstruction of the 

 bowels in the latter being conjoined with physostigmine. 



GENERAL ACTIONS. Pilocarpine stimulates the peripheral 

 terminations of efferent nerves going to glands and to 

 involuntary muscles. In the lower animals secretion of 

 saliva is early and prominently increased. Horses sub- 

 cutaneously injected with three to four grains in two or 

 three minutes are freely salivated ; within one hour three 

 and a half pints of saliva have been collected ; during the 

 next hour about half that quantity, but an hour later the 

 secretion was nearly normal (Kaufmann). The nasal and 

 lachrymal secretions are augmented. So much bronchial 

 mucus is outpoured that a distinct rale is audible, and in 

 poisonous doses the accumulation of fluid and oedema of the 

 membrane, together with the lessened calibre of the tubes 

 due to contraction of the bronchial muscle, cause dyspnoea, 

 which is sometimes fatal. The intestinal glands are stimu- 

 lated, rendering the dejections more abundant, soft, and 

 shortly semi-fluid. Small and moderate doses slightly 

 increase the secretion of urine, and also of milk. In man 

 pilocarpine produces profuse sweating, but in the lower 

 animals even full doses only render the skin moist. By 

 its stimulation of the skin growth of hair is said to be 

 encouraged (Frohner). 



Pilocarpine stimulates the peripheral terminations of the 

 motor nerves distributed to involuntary muscles, and 

 secondarily, and especially in large doses, paralyses them. 

 Given by the mouth, or injected locally, the circular fibres 



