Kawa Constituents — Hansel 
301 
*- — * 50 bemegride 
o- — o 120 pentetrazole 
■ — — « 6.5 picrotoxin 
a a 1.5 strychnine 
* — electric convulsion 
30 mA, 60 Hz, 0.2 sec 
Fig. 7. Anticonvulsive activity of DHM; convul- 
sions produced experimentally by various agents 
(Meyer, 1964). 
inhibited by preadministration of DHM, which 
is similar to electric convulsions. Strychnine 
convulsions are inhibited more strongly than are 
picrotoxin convulsions. 
The curves would look very different if the 
inhibition of clonic convulsions had taken place 
instead of tonic convulsions. Toward clonic 
convulsions, which appear after application of 
the above-named convulsive toxins (bemegride, 
pentetrazole and picrotoxin) preadministration 
of DHM has essentially no effect. On the con- 
trary, DHM enhances and prolongs strikingly 
the clonic convulsion phase. Especially by ad- 
ministration of DHM one effects long lasting 
strong convulsions with only rare and short- 
lived convulsion pauses (without DHM the con- 
vulsions show a more seizure-like character). 
The two kawa pyrones DHM and DHK (the 
latter has a weaker effect) are therefore capable 
of suppressing only incompletely the convul- 
sions caused by chemical convulsive toxins since 
they can suppress only the tonic but not the 
clonic component. A remarkable exception is 
strychnine. In this case DHM and DHK are able 
to suppress both types of convulsion. It may be 
said that both pyrones demonstrate a definite 
anti-strychnine effect, which even surpasses the 
well known antagonism of phenobarbital toward 
strychnine. 
If in conclusion we ask to which long-used 
therapeutics the kawa pyrones show the greatest 
similarity, we may quote H. J. Meyer who, in 
considering recent results which are not repro- 
duced here, says, "Aside from certain peculiar- 
ities of their action the kawa pyrones show the 
characteristics of two anticonvulsants which have 
long maintained a leading role in epilepsy 
therapy, diphenylhydantoin and phenobarbital. 
The similarity with the action of diphenylhy- 
dantoin is somewhat more pronounced." 
spasmolytic effect: Dihydromethysticin 
was tested thoroughly for its spasmolytic action. 
In all experimental designs with smooth muscle 
organs and with organ systems, it proved more 
or less effective. An inhibition of spontaneous 
activity as well as a relaxing effect on muscle 
tone could be demonstrated. The mechanism of 
the action was predominantly designated as 
musculotropic (similar to papaverine). 
antimycotic effect: Anyone who has 
worked in a laboratory with aqueous plant ex- 
tracts has observed that, if these aqueous plant 
extracts stand around for some time, they spoil. 
The extracts become inhabited by microorgan- 
isms. We observed some time ago that aqueous 
extracts of kawa do not spoil, at least not while 
they contain traces of kawa pyrones. In collabor- 
ation with the Institute of Hygiene and Bac- 
teriology of Freie Universitat Berlin we have 
studied the bacteriostatic properties of the kawa 
pyrones. The data (Table 3) are not complete 
since the investigations have not terminated. 
I shall mention the following preliminary re- 
sults (Hansel, Weiss, and Schmidt, 1966). 
(i) The kawa pyrones do not act as bac- 
teriostats. A large number of gram positive, 
gram negative, pathogenic, and apathogenic 
bacteria were tested and they developed unin- 
hibited in nutrients containing pyrones. 
(ii) On the other hand, certain kawa pyrones 
show remarkable fungistatic effects. It is well 
known that there exists a large number of 
bacteriostats but only a very small number of 
substances which are capable of inhibiting the 
growth of fungi. Among the fungi which show 
a high sensitivity particularly toward DHK are 
