328  Notes  on  u  Physiological  Testing."  {AmJuiy"i9Po8arm' 
in  extremely  high  vacuum.  Fraenkel  found  that  this  pure  body 
would  not  act  on  subcutaneous  use.  We  have  no  chemical  method 
of  standardizing  cannabis,  and  the  isolation  of  the  body  is  attended 
with  considerable  difficulty,  so  that  the  method  we  use  is  to  feed 
these  preparations  to  dogs,  and  note  the  minimum  quantities  which 
will  produce  incoordination  in  their  movement.  Dogs  thus  fed  will 
become  unsteady  in  their  legs  and  wobble  from  side  to  side.  All 
dogs,  even  of  the  same  weight,  do  not  respond  the  same  to  cannabis, 
so  that  it  may  be  necessary  to  feed  the  drug  to  a  number  of  dogs 
and  select  the  one  which  responds  best  and  use  it  as  the  standard 
for  the  systematic  testing  of  such  preparations.  This  test  has  been 
reported  on  in  full  by  Dr.  Houghton  in  the  January  number  of  the 
Therapeutic  Gazette.  Ten  to  fifteen  milligrammes  per  kilo  of  the 
extract  should  produce  incoordination  in  one  hour.  Chevalier1  has 
also  recently  experimented  on  this  subject,  and  the  report  of  Famu- 
lener  and  Lyons,2  which  is  well  worth  perusal,  furnishes  details 
accessible  to  us.  These  latter  authors  claim  that  the  fluidextract 
of  cannabis  underwent  little  deterioration  in  a  twelve-months' 
preservation. 
Dixon  uses  in  his  tests  cats  weighing  about  2^  kilos.  He  injects 
subcutaneously  these  animals  with  10  minims  of  the  tincture  diluted 
with  the  same  amount  of  water.  In  a  short  time  their  gait  becomes 
unsteady,  the  reflexes  are  increased  in  activity  and  the  pupils  dilate, 
if  the  preparation  is  active. 
Houghton  calls  attention  to  the  low  toxicity  of  cannabis,  and  the 
question  arises  whether  any  very  exact  quantitative  assay  is  neces- 
sary. Wood3  and  Houghton  have  made  the  impDrtant  observation 
that  American-grown  cannabis  has  the  activity  of  cannabis  grown 
in  India. 
DIGITALIS. 
The  group  of  digitalis,  strophanthus,  squill,  etc.,  is  the  most 
important  one  we  physicians  have  to  use,  and  urgently  demands 
1  Bull.  gen.  de  Therap.,  Vol.  155,  p.  18.    1908.    (Seen  only  in  reference.) 
2  Famulener,  L.  W.,  and  Lyons,  A.  B.  Physiological  Assay  of  Cannabis 
Indica.    Proc.  Amer.  Pharm.  Assoc.,  Vol.  51,  p.  24.0.  1903. 
3  Wood,  H.  C.  On  the  Medicinal  Activity  of  the  Hemp  Plant  as  Grown  in 
North  America.    Proc.  Amer.  Philos.  Soc,  Vol.  11,  p.  226,  1871. 
An  interesting  article  by  Czerkis  on  Cannabinol  can  be  found  in  the  Pharma- 
ceutische  Post,  1907,  pp.  49,  69,  97. 
