380  Digitoxin,  Principle  of  Digitalis.  {Am^Srm- 
dose  caused  arhythmia,  and  after  a  short  time  sudden  cardiac  arrest. 
The  same  effects  were  produced  on  cats.  Rabbits  were  found  to  be 
less  sensitive.  At  the  place  of  injection  no  inflammatory  change 
could  be  detected.  Human  subjects  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Mottes,  of 
Munich,  gave  physiological  effects  without  the  occurrence  of  dis- 
agreeable or  dangerous  symptoms.  Professor  von  Ziemssen  also 
tried  the  digitalin  in  the  Munich  Hospital,  and  obtained  very  good 
results. 
After  this,  however,  Kiliani  radically  changed  his  views  and 
claimed  that  Schmiedeberg's  active  principles  were,  in  several 
instances,  impure  products,  that  is,  mixtures  ;  that  digitalis  leaves 
contained  neither  digitonin  nor  digitalin,  but  the  glucoside  digi- 
toxin ;  that  the  glucosides  digitalin  and  digitonin  are  present  in  the 
seeds,  but  not  in  the  leaves,  and  that  digitonin  is  quite  insoluble  in 
water,  and  that  the  existence  of  digitalein  is  extremely  doubtful. 
In  other  words,  that  digitoxin  is  the  only  important  constituent 
of  digitalis  leaf  {Archiv.  d.  Pharm.,  1892  to  1896,  inclusive,  through 
American  Druggist,  1897,  68). 
In  1895  {Arch.  d.  Phar.,  1895  (No-  4)»  3lI>  320>  v^e  A.  Ph.  A. 
Proceedings,  1896,  825)  Kiliani  reported  obtaining  from  digitalis 
leaves  a  substance  identical  with,  or  closely  related  to,  the  digitoxin 
of  Schmiedeberg,  and  provisionally  termed  it  b  digitoxin.  It  was 
present  to  the  amount  of  o-i  per  cent.,  was  alleged  to  be  a  gluco- 
side, and  was  obtained  in  a  crystalline  state.  In  1896  Kiliani  re- 
ported {Arch.  d.  Pharm.,  234,  No.  7,  September  10,  1896,  48.1,  489, 
vide  A.  Ph.  A.  Proceedings,  1897,  735)  that  experiments  had  shown 
that  Schmiedeberg's  digitoxin  and  the  digitoxin  which  he  had  iso- 
lated during  the  previous  year,  and  provisionally  named  £  digitoxin, 
were  positively  identical. 
In  1897  C.  C.  Keller's  conclusions  (Berichte  d.  Deutsch.  pharm., 
Gesellsch.,  7,  125,  vide  Pharm.  Journal,  vide  A.  D.,  August  10,  1897, 
70)  on  the  subject  of  the  chemical  principles  of  digitalis  leaves 
were  that  they  contain  a  digitalin,  a  digitoxin  and  a  digitonin  identi- 
cal with  products  from  digitalis  seeds,  but  in  somewhat  different 
proportions,  the  amount  of  digitoxin  in  the  seeds  being  much 
smaller  than  that  in  good  leaves,  but  varying  much  in  different 
samples  of  leaves,  or  from  0-26  to  0  62  per  cent.  Keller  writes 
that  the  unsatisfactory  results  obtained  with  the  digitalin  prepared 
according  to  the  method  described  by  Kiliani  (see  Pharm.  Journal, 
