444 poisons : their effects and detection. [§§ 550, 551. 
§ 550. Pharmaceutical Preparations. —Digitalin, although official in 
France, is not so in the British Pharmacopoeia; but it is used in medicine, 
and two kinds are in commerce, amorphous and crystalline. The 
latter is far more potent than the former, and corresponds to the 
glucoside known in Germany as digitoxin: the medicinal dose, for instance, 
is minute, the first dose being a g ra in ('26 mgrm.), and then 
repeated with great caution, watching the effect on the circulation. 
There is also no standardisation officially laid down in the Pharma¬ 
copoeia directions, but leading firms supply this deficiency by using 
preparations physiologically tested. The leaves are official, and there is 
an infusion—7 gims. of the leaves infused in a litre of boiling water 
for fifteen minutes and strained while hot. There is also a tincture— 
100 grms. of the leaves in a litre of 70 per cent, alcohol, four-fifths of the 
strength of that of the B.P. of 1898. 
§ 551. Fatal Dose. —The circumstance of commercial digitalin con¬ 
sisting of varying mixtures of digitoxin, digitalin, and digitalein renders 
it difficult to be dogmatic about the dose likely to destroy life. Besides, 
with all heart-poisons, surprises take place ; and very minute quantities 
have a fatal result when administered to persons with disease of the 
heart, or to such as, owing to some constitutional peculiarity, have a 
heart easily affected by toxic agents. Digitoxin, according to Kopp’s 1 
experiments, is from six to ten times stronger than digitalin or digitalein. 
Two mgrms. caused intense poisonous symptoms. Digitoxin is con¬ 
tained in larger proportions in Nativelle’s digitalin than in Homolle’s, or 
in the German digitalin. The digitalin of Homolle is prescribed in 
1 mgrm. (0-015 grain) doses, and it is thought dangerous to exceed 
6 mgrms. 
Lemaistre has, indeed, seen dangerous symptoms arise from 2 mgrms. 
(0‘03 grain), when administered to a boy fifteen years old. It may be 
predicated from recorded cases and from experiment, that digitoxin 
would probably be fatal to an adult man in doses of 4 mgrms. ( T \ grain), 
and digitalin, or digitalein, in doses of 20 mgrms. (0*3 grain). With 
regard to commercial digitalin, as much as from 10 to 12 mgrms. (0-15 
to 0-13 grain) have been taken without a fatal result; on the other 
hand, 2 mgrms. gave rise to poisonous symptoms in a woman (Battaille). 
Such discrepancies- are to be explained on the grounds already men¬ 
tioned. It is, however, probable that 4 mgrms. (or grain) of ordinary 
commercial digitalin would be very dangerous to an adult. 
It must also, in considering the dose of digitalin, be ever remembered 
that it is a cumulative poison, and that the same dose, harmless if taken 
once, yet frequently repeated becomes deadly : this peculiarity is 
shared by all poisons affecting the heart. When it is desired to settle 
the maximum safe dose for the various tinctures, extracts, and infusions 
1 Archivf. exp, Pathol, u. Pharm., iii. 284, 1875. 
