CUCUMIS COLOCYNTHIS. 
189 
of the fruit, and precipitates, solution of potass, nitrate of silver, and 
acetate of lead. According to M. Vauquelin, the alcoholic solution 
of colocynth yields, by evaporation, a brittle substance of a yellow 
colour, partially soluble in water, the residue consisting of a white 
filamentous mass, changing to yellow ; this substance he names 
Colocyntine, and considers it to be the active principle of the 
colocynth. 
Medical Properties and Uses. The pulp of colocynth.is a 
very powerful and irritating cathartic. It was much used, both by 
the Greek and Arabian physicians, as a remedial agent in a variety 
of diseases requiring the aid of drastic cathartics. Both Hippocrates 
and Dioscorides were in the habit of employing this drug in dropsy, 
lethargy, and maniacal cases ; but always with caution, from an ap- 
prehension of danger from the violence of its effects. In modern 
practice, it is seldom given alone, as it is apt, even in moderate doses, 
to produce violent gripings and bloody dejections. By long coction, 
it is rendered more mild,* and in the form of the extract of the 
London Pharmacopoeia, it is a safe and efficacious cathartic ; and 
when combined with submuriate of mercury, is one of the most 
common and efficient aperients in general use ; it is also much used 
in combination with other aperients, to quicken their operation. 
When given in substance, it should be triturated with some gummy 
or farinaceous substance, which, without making any alteration in 
the colocynth itself, prevents its resinous particles from cohering and 
sticking upon the membranes of the intestines, so as to cause un- 
toward effects. The dose of the pulp in substance is from three to 
ten grains. 
Poisonous Effects of Colocynth. Orfila ranks colocynth 
among the acrid poisons, and relates several iristances of its having 
produced fatal effects when applied to the cellular tissue, death having 
taken place twenty-four hours after its application.! A man swallowed 
three ounces of colocynth, with the hope of curing a gonorrhcea; a 
short time afterwards, he felt severe pains in the epigastrium, and 
vomited violently : at the expiration of two hours, he had copious 
alvine evacuations, the lower extremities became bent, his sight was 
obscured, and he heard with difficulty ; delirium came on, succeeded 
* We are told by Tlinnberg, (vide Travels, vol. ii. p. 171) that at the Cape of Good 
Hope, the Colocjnth is rendered so perfectly mild, by being properly pickled, that it is 
eaten both by the natives and colonists. 
t Orfila's Toxicology, vol. i. p. 18. 
VOL. II. 2 0 
