DR THOMAS R. FRASER ON STROPHANTHUS HISPIDUS. 959 



The first of these is an admirable essay by MM. Polaillon and Carville, published 

 in the Archives de Physiologie of 1872.* It contains much interesting information 

 regarding the Strophanthus used in the Gaboon as an arrow-poison, and known there, as 

 well as in other districts of West Africa, as the Inee, or Onaye, or Onage poison; but 

 the greater part of it is occupied with a full description of an experimental investigation 

 on the pharmacology of the seeds of the Strophanthus plant. These authors especially 

 examined the action on the heart, on striped and non-striped muscle, and on the cerebro- 

 spinal nervous system. Their results altogether harmonise with those I had already 

 published in the preliminary papers. The most important of them are summarised by 

 MM. Polaillon" and Carville in the following statements : — It acts on the heart, and 

 produces death by paralysing this organ (p. 550). The ventricles are never arrested in 

 diastole ; they are always contracted in systole (p. 705). The action on the heart is not 

 produced through the brain, medulla, nor spinal cord (p. 697), but by an effect on the 

 muscular fibre of the heart (p. 704). Inee acts on the muscular fibre, striped and 

 smooth, of which it rapidly destroys the contractility ; but it does not appear to act on 

 the nervous system nor on the peripheral blood-vessels. It is essentially a muscle 

 poison. It has no action, or only a secondary action, on the other organs (p. 695). 

 MM. Polaillon and Carville also state that the Inee poison produces no effect on the 

 sea medusa, a creature unprovided with a central contractile organ for the circulation 

 (p. 707). 



The second paper which appeared between the years 1870 and 1885 was that of MM. 

 Hardy and Gallois on the active principle of Strophanthus hispidus, published in 

 1877.t The two chief statements contained in this paper are, that the seeds of Strophan- 

 thus contain an active principle which is not a glucoside (" ne rentre point dans le groupe 

 des glucosides "),| and that the comose appendages of the seeds contain a crystalline sub- 

 stance for which the name " Ineine " is proposed. This " ineine " is stated to give the 

 reactions of an alkaloid, but to be destitute of any action on the heart, and, apparently, 

 of any physiological action whatever. 



In the process adopted by them for separating the active principle of the seeds, 

 Hardy and Gallois unfortunately used alcohol acidulated with hydrochloric acid. By 

 so doing, they necessarily failed to separate the true active principle, which, as I have 

 shown, is a glucoside easily decomposed by acids, even at an ordinary temperature ; and 

 they, therefore, obtained only a decomposition product of the glucosidal active principle 

 — the body, in fact, since described by me as strophanthidin. 



In reference to the alkaloid, believed by them to exist in the comose appendages of 

 the seeds, subsequent observers, working with much larger quantities of material than 

 they were able to obtain, have not been successful in discovering its existence. In the 

 chemical portion of this paper I shall have occasion to point out that, even when one pound 



* Tome iv. pp. 523 and 681. 



t Journal de Pharmacie et de Chemie, t. xxv., 1877, p. 177. 



X Loc. cit, p. 179. 



