July, 1922] BONNS — A STUDY OF CLAVICEPS PURPUREA 
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total dry weight used in extraction. Test of the extract from this source 
in standard dose produced no distinctive bluing of the comb of a White 
Leghorn cock, and only a slight indication of increased blood pressure 
in a rabbit. 
The second test was made with an extract in which the fungous material 
largely predominated. To attain this end, the cultures were grown on 
a thin layer of corn-meal mash in Petri dishes (10 g. of meal, 10 cc. of 
I percent peptone solution, and 10 cc. tap water). These cultures, inocu- 
lated from one of the 500-cc. flasks in the series previously discussed, grew 
rapidly, passing through all the previously described stages (PI. XX, fig. i) 
and developing at a comparatively early stage the soluble purple color 
(presumably sclererythrin, a physiologically inert substance). This diffused 
quite readily to the lower surface of the substrate (PI. XX, fig. 2). Sterile 
water was added when necessary to promote growth. At the end of 
three months, four dishes were dried to constant weight, and their con- 
tents were removed, ground, and extracted by the standard method. The 
finely ground material had the general appearance and the peculiarly 
musty odor of ground ergot sclerotia. Forty grams of the original corn, 
meal yielded 22.2 grams of dried powdered fungus and substrate mixture. 
Microscopic examination showed that this contained less than thirty per- 
cent (estimated) of unaltered corn meal. 
In color and odor the fluid extracts from this material — as, indeed, in 
the one previously made, and in the one to follow — ^were characteristic of 
standard ergot extract except that in shade of color they were somewhat 
lighter, resembling more closely a percolate of domestic rather than of 
foreign ergot. 
With this extract tests were made as follows : 
For tyr amine (parahydroxyphenylethy famine). Blood-pressure tests were 
made on the rabbit and cat. Negative results were obtained on a rabbit 
with both fungous extract and standard U. S. P. ergot extract. On cats 
the latter produced increase of blood pressure characteristic of standard 
ergot preparations. The extract of the fungous culture effected a lowering 
of pressure but showed no pressure increase. 
For histamine. A uterine muscle-contraction test was made on guinea 
pig. The kymogram chart (PI. XXI, fig. i) shows the results obtained. 
A and C indicate the contraction resulting from the addition of standard 
U. S. P. ergot extract, 1-10,000. This represents i gram of powdered 
ergot per 10,000 cc. solution. B, D, and E are the contractions obtained 
with extracts from the culture in strengths of 1-3300, 1-5000, and 1-7000, 
respectively. The figures beside each wave are the distances in millimeters 
from crest to base line. 
It is clear that there was present in the extract a principle causing 
uterine contraction and ranging in strength about from 1/3 to 7/10 that 
of standard ergot preparations. 
