22 
Purgative  Principle  of  Croton  Oil. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.,  1884. 
THE  PUEGATIVE  PRINCIPLE  OF  CROTON  OIL.1 
By  Harold  Senier, 
Fellow  of  the  Institute  of  Chemistry  and  of  the  Chemical  Society. 
In  a  paper  read  before  this  Society  in  March,  1878/  I  pointed  out 
that  English  pressed  croton  oil  of  undoubted  genuineness  could  be 
separated  by  alcohol  into  two  parts.  The  part  soluble  in  alcohol  was, 
or  contained  the  vesicating  principle,  while  the  part  insoluble  in 
alcohol  was  entirely  non-vesicating.  Further  experiments  towards  the 
isolation  of  this  vesicating  principle  I  have  recorded  in  another  paper. 
With  respect  to  the  other  prominent  property  of  croton  oil,  its  purga- 
tive activity,  I  at  that  time  was  led  by  the  opinion  of  therapeutists  to 
believe  either  that  this  action  was  due  to  the  vesicating  principle  or 
that  it  resided  in  the  same  portion  of  the  oil — that  portion  soluble  in 
alcohol ;  this,  however,  was  not  then  determined.  I  now  find  that  the 
purgative  constituent  does  not  exist  in  the  alcohol-soluble  vesicating 
oil,  but  is  entirely  in  the  alcohol  non-soluble,  non-vesicating  oil.  This 
I  determined  in  the  first  place  by  experiments  on  myself  and  others, 
and  more  recently  the  therapeutic  action  of  this  oil  has  been  studied 
by  my  friend  Dr.  J.  W.  Meek.  My  experiments  consisted  first,  of  the 
administration  of  the  non-vesicating  oil  in  doses  of  minim, 
increased  to  J  minim ;  if  this  oil  contained  the  whole  of  the  purgative 
principle,  this  quantity  would  be  equivalent  to  about  -A-  to  1  minim  of 
commercial  croton  oil.  The  oil  used  in  these  experiments  was  care- 
fully freed  from  traces  of  the  vesicating  oil  by  repeated  washings  with 
alcohol  until  nothing  more  was  dissolved.  It  was  administered  in  the 
form  of  pills,  and  I  found  magnesium  carbonate  and  extract  of 
hyoscyamus  convenient  excipients.  The  general  results  from  these 
experiments  were,  briefly,  from  the  smaller  doses  a  mild,  and  from  the 
larger  doses  a  powerful  purgative  effect,  unaccompanied  by  any 
unpleasant  symptoms.  I  supplemented  these  experiments  by  the 
administration  of  similar  doses  of  the  A^esicating  oil  under  similiar 
conditions  and  obtained  no  purgative  action,  but  a  considerable  amount 
of  irritation  in  the  alimentary  canal  accompanied  by  nausea. 
In  conclusion,  I  do  not  think  I  am  exaggerating  the  practical  out- 
* 
1  Read  at  an  Evening  Meeting  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great 
Britain,  December  5,  1883. 
2  Pharm.  Journal,  [3],  viii.,  p.  705. 
