•i66  Active  Principle  of  Ergot.  { A^Xiaii^""' 
One  month  previous  to  the  appearance  of  Barger  and  Dale's 
paper  on  /^-hnidazoylethylamine,'^  Kutscher  had  fractioned  from 
ergot,  by  means  of  silver  nitrate  and  ammonia,  a  derivative  of 
histidin  which  was  found  to  produce  a  marked  fall  in  blood  pres- 
sure in  rabbits.  He  suspected  it  to  be  imidazoylethylamin,  but 
found  this  latter  would  produce  a  rise  in  blood  pressure  while 
the  base  he  obtained  produced  a  fall  and  on  this  basis  argued 
against  its  identity.  The  difference  in  the  views  of  these  investi- 
gators can  be  explained  as  due  to  differences  in  the  animals  used  for 
testing  their  compounds. 
Recently  another  active  principle  has  been  found  in  ergot  by 
Engeland  and  Kutscher.  This  has  been  found  to  be  agmatine,  a 
base  which  Kossel  ^-  found  in  herring  roe.  Agmatine  is  related  to 
arginine  in  the  same  manner  as  /?-iminazoylethylamine  is  related  to 
histidin. 
According  to  the  latest  view,  the  action  of  ergot  in  bluing 
the  cock's  comb  is  due  to  ergotoxine,  while  the  blood  pressure 
raising  action  is  mainly  due  to  p.  oxyphenylethylamin,  although 
ergotoxine  plays  a  part  in  it.  Parahydroplyphenylethylamine  is 
difficult  to  isolate,  and  the  amount  present  has  not  been  determined 
chemically,  but  by  physiological  tests  it  is  estimated  that  i  kilogram 
of  ergot  will  yield  a  few  decigrams  of  this  substance. 
The  important  problem  now  is  whether  ergotoxin,  on  decom- 
position, will  yield  these  various  pressor  amines,  and  if  not,  are 
they  all  decomposition  products  of  a  common  mother  substance? 
Should  this  be  so,  this  body  remains  to  be  isolated. 
Resume. 
Investigators  have  long  recognized  in  ergot  the  presence  of  two 
bodies  which  have  been  designated  as  alkaloids.  The  specific 
alkaloid,  ergotoxin,  is  present  in  such  small  quantities  in  ergot 
that  we  cannot  trace  the  entire  therapeutic  action  of  ergot  to 
this  compound  alone.  It  would  be  well  to  decide  whether  the 
action  of  ergotoxin  is  not  really  due  to  an  amino  group.  The 
evidence  at  present  points  to  the  fact  that  ergot  owes  its  activity 
to  the  presence  of  various  basic  amino  compounds,  and  this  is 
supported  by  the  fact  that  only  fresh  ergot  is  official  in  certain 
pharmacopoeias,  as  it  is  known  that  ergot  rapidly  degenerates 
with  the  formation  of  tri-methylamine.    It  is  interesting  to  note 
