50 Botanic Drugs 



tral nervous system because of their solubility in 

 brain lipoid. We have learned that muscarine is 

 stored in the heart muscle, but that atropine re- 

 tards its absorption from the outside fluid; hence 

 we now have an antidote for muscarine poisoning. 

 Chloral is proven to diminish the oxidizing capacity 

 of the tissues, and hence we learn when not to use 

 chloral. Nicotine action is due to its disappearance 

 from the blood and being taken up by the liver; 

 and this is but one instance of selective action, 

 which, once it is fully understood, will enrich 

 therapy. 



And we learn some strange things from pharma- 

 cology. For instance, the vegetable purgatives con- 

 tain irritant principles whose absorption would 

 irritate the kidneys. Hence we give these drugs 

 in a more or less crude or impure state in order to 

 prevent absorption, their natural gums and resins 

 delaying absorption. We do not wish anthelmintics 

 and emetics to be absorbed from the stomach; 

 hence we are not concerned so much with remote as 

 with immediate effects, and animal experimentation 

 proves out these drugs for us faster than we could 

 determine the points by clinical experimentation. 

 It seems strange that senega is an expectorant only 

 indirectly, through its increasing the flow of bronchial 

 mucus by exciting the nerve-endings in the stomach, 

 which, in turn, affects the bronchioles reflexly 

 through the medulla. 



Because a drug possesses a certain number of 

 physiological actions it does not at all follow that, 

 when a full dose is swallowed, the patient experi- 

 ences all of those actions. Often it is necessary to 

 administer the drug hypodermatically to realize even 



