COLCHICUM • 633 



Tinctura Colchici Seminis. Tincture of Colchicum Seed. 

 (U. S. & B. P.) 



Made by maceration and percolation of colchicum seed, 100; with 

 alcohol and water to make 1000. (U. S. P.) 



Dose.—H. & C, 3iii.-Si. (12.-30.); D., ni,x.-xxx. (.6-2.). 



Action External. — Colchicum is an irritant to the skin 

 and mucous membranes. 



Action Internal — Digestive Organs. — Colchicum and 

 colchicine are identical in action without regard to their 

 method of introduction into the system. Colchicum is es- 

 sentially a gastro-intestinal irritant in large doses. This; 

 irritant action may explain all its effects on other organs. 

 Full medicinal doses occasion anorexia, nausea, colicky pains, 

 loud intestinal rumblings (borborygmi), and purging. Col- 

 chiceine appears to closely resemble colchicine physiologi- 

 cally. Neither the circulation, nervous system, respiration, 

 nor temperature are affected by colchicum save in poisonous 

 doses. 



Circulation. — Toxic doses reflexly influence the circula- 

 tion, but colchicum does not appear to affect it directly until 

 late in poisoning, when the vagus endings become depressed 

 and paralyzed and the pulse is weak and rapid. 



Nervous System. — Toxic quantities depress and paralyze 

 the motor cells of the inferior cornua in the spinal cord, 

 and also depress the sensory nerves. Death occurs from 

 paralysis of the respiratory centres. 



Kidneys and Elimination. — It is doubtful whether col- 

 chicum exerts any decided or uniform action on the kidneys. 

 Experiments relating to this matter are perplexingly con- 

 flicting. Sometime^ the urinary solids are increased — urea 

 more than uric acid — and sometimes not. In poisoning, 

 nephritis and hematuria occasionally result from the elimina- 

 tion of colchicum. 



Toxicology. — Colchicum is a very poisonous drug. Acci- 

 dental lethal poisoning occasionally occurs among herbivora 

 from eating meadow saffron at pasture, or in hay. In such 



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