32 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



positively identify it as crystalline andromedotoxin. The material 

 obtained from this plant was less active physiologically than that 

 obtained from Pieris japonica. Crystals were also obtained from 

 Azalea indica. 



In 1.887 Plngge ° and his pupil de Zaayer & made a more extended 

 study of the andromedotoxin obtained from Rhododendron ponticum. 

 They summed up the previous chemical work and studied the active 

 principle pharmacologically. They claimed that the body shaken out 

 by the chloroform could be precipitated from alcohol or chloroform 

 solution by ether in the form of crystalline needles. Muto failed to 

 obtain these needles from Pieris japonica, the plant Plngge first 

 worked with. This body contained carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, 

 but no nitrogen, and melted at 228° to 229° C. Plngge and de Zaayer 

 gave it the empirical formula C 31 H 51 Oi , although the figures for 

 this conclusion were not exact. It was readily soluble in water and 

 alcohol, but very slightly in ether. They stated that it was more 

 soluble in cold than in hot water, although Plugge elsewhere states 

 the opposite. In water, alcohol, and amyl alcohol it turns the plane 

 of polarization to the left, while dissolved in chloroform it turns it 

 to the right. It gives no precipitate with alkaloidal reagents. When 

 subcutaneously injected, 0.0001 gram caused death in a frog (Rana 

 tt mporaria) in a few hours. 



This conjoint paper apparently so settled the question as to indi- 

 cate that all that was necessary to determine the presence of andro- 

 medotoxin was to ascertain if the chloroform shaking from the plants 

 gave the same physiological action and the same color reaction as 

 that described for andromedotoxin. Plugge did this with Kalmia 

 latifolia and from its action on frogs decided that the fluid extract 

 contained one-half of 1 per cent of andromedotoxin. By this method 

 he decided that andromedotoxin was present in the following plants : 



Pieris japonica Thmib. Rhododendron ponticum L. 



Andromeda polifolia L. Rhododendron ehrysanthum L. 



Leueothoe catesbaei (Walt.) Rhododendron hybridum Ker. 



Gray. Rhododendron falkoneri Hook. f. 



Ghamaedaphne calyculata (L.) Rhododendron maximum L. 



Moenck. Kahnia latifolia L. 



Rhododendron grandc Wight. Kahnia angustifolia L. 



Rhododendron barbatum Wall. Azalea indica L. 



Rhododendron fulgens Hook. f. Monotropa uniflora L. 



Rhododendron cinnabarinum Pieris formosa Don. 



Hook. f. Pieris oral i folia Don. 

 Rhododendron puniecum Poxb. 



°' Plugge, P. C. Peber Andromedotoxin. Arch. d. Pharm., vol. 221, p. 12, 

 1883. 



1 Zaayer, H. G. de. Untersueb. ii. Andromedotoxin. Arch. f. gesain. Physiol., 

 vol. 40, p. 480, 1887.— Plugge, P. C. Andromedotoxin. Verhandl. d. X internat. 

 med. Cong., vol. 2, pt. 4, p. 28, 1891. 

 121—n 



