Am "juiy^'iSSf rm" }       Tincture  of  Fat-Free  Digitalis.  333 
first  class,  and  digitonin  and  digitalein  to  the  second  class  ;  the 
tincture  and  fluid  extract  containing,  most  largely,  digitahn  and 
digitoxin,  with  some  digitonin  and  digitalein,  while  the  infusion 
contained  digitonin  and  digitalein,  with  no  digitalin  or  digitoxin. 
Hence  the  difference  in  clinical  value  between  the  aqueous  and 
alcoholic  preparations  of  digitalis  leaves. 
Reference  was  made  to  the  superior  therapeutic  worth  of  the 
English  leaves  over  the  German,  and  this  was  ascribed  to  the  fact 
that  the  English  leaves  were  carefully  freed  from  nerves  and  stalks 
(which  had  been  shown  to  contain  only  one-fifth  as  much  digitalin 
as  the  leaf  parenchyma),  thereby  reducing  the  element  of  varia- 
bility to  a  minimum.  Since  1892,  however,  by  personal  advices 
received  from  London,  the  writer  is  convinced  that  much  of  the  so- 
called  English  leaves  are  simply  very  carefully  garbled  German 
leaves,  and  not  English  cultivated  leaves,  as  supposed. 
Attention  was  also  called  to  the  fact  that  the  freshly-made 
infusion  was  weakly  acid  in  reaction,  while  the  tincture  gave  the 
acid  reaction  more  promptly,  owing,  probably,  to  a  greater  solu- 
bility of  the  acids  of  the  leaf  in  alcohol,  and  the  presence  of  a 
larger  quantity  in  solution. 
The  acids  present  in  digitalis  leaves  are  the  odorous  antirrhinic 
acid  of  Morin  (1845),  and  the  fatty  digitoleic  acid  of  Kosmann, 
with  which  the  digitaloic  acid  of  Walz  is  probably  identical.  The 
percentage  of  fixed  oil  obtained  was  relatively  high.  By  petroleum 
benzin  exhaustion  and  spontaneous  evaporation,  I  obtained,  in  1887, 
about  5  per  cent.  The  oil,  or  rather  mixture,  as  there  was  evidently 
present  both  a  volatile  portion  and  a  fixed  oil,  was  a  dark  reddish 
brown  liquid  of  a  heavy  persistently  narcotic  odor,  largely  soluble 
in  alcohol,  freely  soluble  in  ether  or  chloroform,  and  not  readily 
inflammable  (showing  the  absence  of  traces  of  petroleum  benzin). 
It  left  a  permanently  greasy  stain  on  bibulous  paper.  Its  specific 
gravity  was  about  0-850.  Heated  for  eight  hours  it  lost  5-4  per 
cent.,  and  also  lost  its  peculiar  narcotic  odor,  becoming  more  fatty 
in  character,  indicating  the  loss  of  a  volatile  portion. 
When  tincture  of  digitalis  is  sometimes  given,  it  causes  profound 
gastric  disturbance,  even  nausea  and  vomiting,  and  believing  that, 
possibly,  this  might  be  due  in  part,  if  not  wholly,  to  the  fixed  oil  of 
the  leaf  and  its  free  acids,  the  writer  prepared,  some  years  ago,  a  so- 
called  fat-free  tincture  in  which  these  two  principles  were  eliminated. 
