Active  Principle  of  Ergot. 
Am.  Jour.  Pbarm. 
April,  1911. 
sclerotic  acid.  He  used  the  contraction  of  the  blood  vessels  of 
the  frog  as  his  guide  and  found  that  the  ether  extract  of  ergot  caused 
no  contraction  of  these  vessels.  His  preparation  was  placed  on  the 
market  as  "  dialyzed  ergotin,"  the  dialysis  being  used  to  free  it 
from  certain  extraneous  matter.  Wernich  reported  that,  after 
ergotin  administration,  the  bladders  in  numerous  cases  were  found 
distended,  owing  to  an  increased  secretion  of  urine.  This  ob- 
servation agrees  with  that  of  Hooker  already  mentioned.  Kokorin 
is  reported  to  have  noted  that,  after  injecting  Wernich's  preparation, 
dry  gangrene  occurred  at  the  site  of  injection. 
Buchheim (1874)  failed  to  obtain  any  active  principle,  and 
traced  the  acidity  of  ergot  to  lactic  acid  and  its  activity  tO'  decom- 
position products  of  proteins.  His  most  important  work  was  to 
prove  the  presence  of  leucin,  which  he  showed  yielded  amylamin 
on  heating  in  a  test  tube. 
Dragendorff  and  Podwissotsky  called  attention  to  the  presence 
in  ergot  of  0.4-1. 15  per  cent,  phosphoric  acid,  and  strange  to  say, 
the  activity  of  ergot  was  traced  by  Leri  to  this  acid.  Its  presence 
was  originally  noted  by  Vauquelin.  Dragendorff  and  Podwis- 
sotsky somewhat  purified  sclerotic  acid  and  named  it  sclerotinic 
acid  and  traced  most  of  the  activity  of  ergot  to  it,  but  some  of 
the  activity  was  attributed  to  a  colloid  body  which  they  named 
scleromucin.  They  also  noted  the  presence  of  a  base,  picrosclerotin, 
yet  they  did  not  attribute  the  action  of  ergot  to  it.  Their  tests 
were  made  on  frogs  and  seem  unsatisfactory.  From  experiments 
on  pregnant  and  non-pregnant  animals  and  also  on  the  isolated 
uterus,  Kobert  claimed  that  sclerotinic  acid  did  not  excite  uterine 
contractions,  and  Ganguillet  and  Rennert  pronounced  it  worth- 
less for  clinical  purposes.  The  clinical  experiments  of  Fehling  and 
v.  Scanzoni  also  indicated  that  sclerotinic  acid  possessed  nO'  marked 
therapeutic  activity  to  excite  uterine  contraction,  Dragendorff  and 
Podwissotsky  also  claimed  to  have  proved  the  presence  of  various 
coloring  matters,  sclererythrin,  sclerojodin  and  scleroxanthin 
together  with  a  crystalline  body  sclerokrystallin.  Podwissotsky 
noted  that  on  treating  sclerotinic  acid  with  alkalies  it  lost  its 
activity  and  ammonia  developed.  The  view  that  the  activity  of 
ergot  was  mainly  due  to  sclerotinic  acid  was  corroborated  by 
Nikitin's  work.^^ 
Zweifel  also  traced  the  activity  of  ergot  to  a  water-soluble 
acid  principle,  and  based  his  conclusions  on  the  action  of  this 
