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Active  Principle  of  Ergot. 
I  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1      April,  1911. 
work  done  on  the  isolation  uf  the  active  principles.  Unfortunately 
various  investigators  have  used  the  same  name  for  different  prepa- 
rations, and  have  used  different  biological  tests  as  their  guide 
in  determining  the  activity  of  such  preparations,  so  that,  for  clear- 
ness it  is  necessary  to  discuss  in  some  detail  the  work  of  each, 
although  the  names  of  these  workers  are  now  unimportant. 
Ergot  has  been  used  by  the  Chinese  as  an  oxytocic  for  over 
one  thousand  years,  but  there  are  only  a  few  records  of  its  use 
in  modern  medicine  until  Steam's  article^  (1807)  appeared.  The 
earher  workers  were  engaged  in  proving  the  relation  of  ergot  to 
the  various  complex-of-symptoms  wdiich  have  received  the  name 
"ergotism.""    Salerne  ^  (i754)  Tessier  (1778)   found  that 
gangrene  occurred  in  young  pigs  after  the  administration  of  ergot, 
while  Dietz  (1830)  noted  that  one  to  three  ounces  of  ergot  would 
cause  gangrene  of  the  comb  and  wings  of  birds.  From  an  early 
date  ergot  was  believed  to  possess  a  specific  action  upon  the  uterus 
and  the  small  arteries. 
The  recorded  chemical  work  on  ergot  dates  back  to  171 7,  but 
the  reports  of  the  early  investigators,  such  as  Tessier,*  Mass,  Pet- 
tenkofer  (1817),  and  others  need  only  be  referred  to.  In  1817 
Vauquelin  and  in  1831  Wiggers called  attention  to  the  large 
amount  of  oil  in  ergot.  Wiggers  denied  the  presence  of  hydro- 
cyanic acid  in  it.  This  acid  had  been  obtained  by  Pettenkofer 
by  burning  ergot  with  caustic  potash,  but  Roberts  believed  he 
had  obtained  a  reaction  for  it  in  an  aqueous  extract.  Wiggers 
recognized  a  sugar  which  Liebig  and  Pelouze  claimed  to  be  mannit, 
while  others  believed  it  to  be  mucose.^  This  mucose  has  been 
found  to  be  trehalose.'  Later  both  mucose  and  mannit  were 
claimed  to  be  present  in  ergot. 
Wiggers  removed  oils,  etc.,  from  ergot  by  means  of  ether 
and  extracted  the  residue  with  alcohol.  The  portion  of  this  ex- 
tract which  was  insoluble  in  water  he  called  ergotin.  This  must 
necessarily  represent  a  mixture  and  not  a  chemical  individual.  He 
fed  9  grains  of  this  ergotin  to  a  cock  and  induced  convulsions  and 
death.  This  amount  corresponded  to  about  one  and  one-half  ounces 
of  ergot.  He  noted  that  the  comb  became  cold,  but  said  nothing 
as  to  its  bluing,  and  inferred  that  ergotin  represented  the  toxic 
principle,  while  the  aqueous  extract  represented  the  therapeutically 
active  agent,  the  active  principle  was  believed  to  reside  in  the 
aqueous  extract  and  was  probably  due  to  a  so-called  "  ozmazom." 
