Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
April,  1911.  / 
Active  Principle  of  Ergot. 
alkaloids.  He  precipitated  an  aqueous  extract  of  ergot  with  lead 
subacetate  to  remove  impurities  and  then  precipitated  the  filtrate  by 
means  of  mercuric  chloride  and  bicarbonate  of  potassium.  After 
decomposing  this  precipitate  with  H^S,  the  two  bases  were  separated 
by  means  of  mercuric  chloride.  As  its  name  would  imply,  he 
believed  the  first  base  to  be  the  medicinally  active  agent,  however, 
no  analyses  were  made  of  these  compounds.  This  view  that 
ecbolin  was  the  active  agent  in  ergot  was  based  on  its  supposed 
action  on  the  spinal  cord  of  man,  which  action  manifested  itself 
by  involuntarily  muscular  contractions,  etc.  The  activity  of  ecbolin 
was  also  inferred  from  one  experiment  in  controlling  uterine  hemor- 
rhage. Wenzell  later  separated  his  bases  by  means  of  the  insolubility 
of  ecbolin  in  ether.  On  warming-  an  extract  with  caustic  potash 
an  odor  of  propylamine,  in  reality  trimethylamine,  was  obtained. 
This  work  was  corroborated  by  Herrmann  as  to  the  presence 
of  ecbolin,  the  only  one  of  Wenzell's  bodies  he  searched  for,  and 
by  Ganser  as  to  the  presence  of  ecbolin,  ergotin  and  ergotic  acid, 
while  Manassewitz  found  ergotin  only  present  and  with  it  a  form- 
ate. As  in  Wenzell's  experiments,  the  precipitates  which  Manas- 
sewitz obtained  with  mercuric  chloride  yielded  trimethylamine  on 
treatment  with  caustic  potash.  Haudelin,^*  by  experiments  on  cats, 
failed  to  corroborate  Wenzell's  work.  He  found  that  both  the 
precipitate  and  filtrate  with  mercuric  chloride  and  sodium  carbonate 
were  inactive  to  cats  on  intravenous  injection.  He  noted  that  the 
active  principle  was  insoluble  in  alcohol  and  could  not  be  precipitated 
with  lead  subacetate  and  ammonia.  Dragendorff  and  Podwissotsky 
found  both  ecbolin  and  ergotin  inactive  to'  frogs.  Rossbach 
claimed  that  there  were  only  quantitative  differences  between  Wig- 
gers'  ergotin  and  Wenzell's  ecbolin.  Wenzell  noted  that  the  re- 
action of  an  aqueous  extract  of  ergot  was  acid,  and  believed  this 
due  to  the  presence  of  acid  phosphate  of  magnesia. 
Blumberg^^  thought  there  was  only  one  alkaloid  present  in 
ergot  and  that  ergotin  and  ecbolin  were  identical.  The  filtrate  from 
which  Wenzell  obtained  his  ergotin  was  found  by  Blumberg  to 
yield  trimethylamin,  while  the  precipitate  which  should  contain 
ecbolin  yielded  none. 
According  to  Kobert,  the  compound  which  excites  uterine 
action  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  substance  which  forms  the 
main  mass  of  Bon  jean's  extract  and  of  Wenzell's  dialyzed  ergotin. 
Wernich  ^®  traced  the  action  of  ergot  to  the  water-soluble 
