AN ANALYSIS OF ERGOT OF RYE. 
105 
not prepared to say that there is not present an either fixed or vo- 
latile alkaloid, for I have reason to believe there is, although I 
was unsuccessful in obtaining it ; but I feel quite confident that if 
there be, it exists in very minute quantity. 
If the assertions made by previous investigators be true, that 
both the expressed oil, and that obtained by ether and deprived 
entirely of resinous matter by washing with alcohol, are medi- 
cinally inert, such a fact certainly favors the conclusion that 
the activity of ergot is either due to the resin, (as maintained by 
both Wiggers and Pardue,) or to an alkaloid. 
One of the best published analyses (up to the present time) of 
ergot seems to have been made by Wiggers, and although at first 
sight it seems to be very full, a practical examination will show 
its defects. 
As the ergot I examined was of German origin, it was probably 
of the same general character as that examined by Wiggers. My 
analysis is confirmatory of his for the most part, but does not 
agree with it altogether. It appears that the discrepancies exist 
principally in the minutise of analysis, and in the organic part of 
the investigation. We both obtained the same amount of oil, which 
has been shown to constitute more than one third of the whole 
constitution of ergot, and after extracting everything which the 
different menstrua would bring away, the amount of fungin re- 
maining in each case approximates. 
We differ as to the amount of albumen, which I experienced 
great difficulty in separating completely from the other con- 
stituents. 
We agree in the description of the oil, except as to its saponifi- 
cation ; for his assertion that the oil is not saponifiable, I have 
shown to be totally incorrect. The solid fat deposited from the 
oil by repose, he calls cerin. 
M. Pardue, who made an examination of ergot, has been guilty 
of the same error in stating that the oil obtained by ether is not 
saponifiable, {Chemical Gazette^ vol. ii .page 495.) This is pro- 
bably one reason why the chemical constitution of this oil has not 
been before examined. 
Although in the respective analyses of ergot made by Wiggers, 
Vauquelin, Duhamel, Legrip, Pardue and Bonjean, resin is 
