Notice of new Medical Preparations. 295 
by Henry and Delondre, is no doubt also an active component of this 
extract, and we find in a number of vegetable crystalline products, 
that they frequently owe their activity to certain principles associated 
by their crystallization; and if rendered entirely pure, they are fee- 
ble or inert. Thus, piperine owes its activity to the resinous oil 
which is associated, more or less, with it; and in proportion as it con- 
tains this or is deprived of it, is its activity increased or diminished. 
It has been fully ascertained, that one drop of the oil is equal to 
three grains of piperine. Thus also it is with narcotine, which is 
more or less associated with a viscid substance, resembling caout- 
cheuc, an acid and extractive matter in combination ; and in propor- 
tion as the crystals are deprived of this combination, and are ren- 
dered pure and white, is its activity diminished. In the process of 
denarcotizing opium, this product is obtained with the narcotine, but 
it is not to narcotine that opium owes its stimulating and unpleasant 
properties, but to this compound. Magendie states that one grain of 
narcotine, dissolved in oil, has a powerful effect on the animal system, 
resulting in death. « My experiment with narcotine differs exceeding- 
ly from the above, having given several grains without any sensible 
effect whatever, and a physician of this city, who has made a num- 
ber of experiments on this salt, in a pure state, informs me that it 
possesses little or none of the narcotic or stimulating powers; that he 
took ten grains of it at once, and that it produced no other effect than 
a slight nausea, but associated as it is in its first extraction from opium 
with the peculiar substances before named, it possesses very active 
and deleterious properties.* 
Quinine, when it was first made, contained a portion of extractive 
matter associated with it, and it is a fact well known to every physi- 
cian who has employed this salt extensively, that it is not as active as 
it formerly was, and that it requires a larger dose for patients unac- 
customed to the use of quinine. 
We also know that the common manna is more active than the 
flake, and it could be so purified that it would not be more active 
* Dr. Tully, in a highly interesting paper on Narcotine, published in the xxr vol. 
of this Journal, although differing with me as to the degree of activity of this sub- 
stance, states that it is less active on the human system, than opium itself. That 
from 2 to 5 grains constitute a medium full dose, where a single dose is to be taken. 
That it is entirely destitute of all stimulating powers, whether it is given in full or in 
moderate and uniform doses at regular and short intervals, but that it possesses sopo- 
rific effects greater in proportion to its powers, than the sulphate of morphia. 
He concludes by stating that he does not esteem it by any means, impossible that 
the bitter principle, or extractive (as vaguely called,) or perhaps some other part of 
this complex drug may yet be found to contribute something to its medicinal effects. 
