ii4 
Standardization  of  Digitalis  Bodies.    lAm- Jou,r-pharm' 
'         ^  (      March,  1913. 
made.  One  of  the  fluid  extracts  was  made  with  50  per  cent.,  the 
other  with  75  per  cent,  alcohol.    The  figures  are  given  in  Table  3. 
Table  3- 
Standardization  of  Fluidextract  Adonis. 
Specimen  Direct  Method  Combined  method 
Dose  in  Mg.  X  kg.  Dose  in  Mg.  X  kg. 
A  no) 
B 
Fresh  Infusion  of  Specimen  B. 
no)  ^ 
I30}=  io,  98^ 
107  ) 
100  >  105  ) 
88  [  =94  96  | 
III 
100 
I  =  96.,' 
A  100 
93 
In  this  series  of  standardizations  there  were  but  few  tests  and  no 
special  effort  was  made  to  obtain  an  exact  evaluation  in  any  case, 
as  the  purpose  of  the  tests  was  merely  to  show  whether  there  was 
any  very  great  difference  in  the  activity  of  preparations  made  with 
different  strengths  of  alcohol,  and  a  number  of  different  samples 
were  to  be  tested,  coming  from  widely  different  sources. 
The  fifth  consideration  is  that  of  providing  a  means  of  comparing 
widely  different  members  of  the  group,  both  as  regards  their  relative 
activity  and  with  reference  to  their  toxicity  for  man. 
The  elements  introduced  by  the  factors  of  absorption  in  the  frog 
and  guineapig  methods  limit  the  usefulness  of  these  with  regard 
to  this  last  requisite.  It  is  well  known  that  even  the  so-called  pure 
principles,  and  those  which  are  the  purest — ouabain  and  crystalline 
digitoxin — are  entirely  different  in  their  absorbabilities  from  dif- 
ferent tissues.  Further,  the  relative  activity  of  digitoxin  and 
amorphous  strophanthin  as  found  by  Hale  on  frogs  is  certainly 
no  indication  of  the  relative  toxicity  of  these  two  drugs  for  man. 
Famulener  and  Lyons  found  strophanthin  17  times  as  toxic  as 
crystalline  digitoxin  on  frogs,  but  surely  no  one  would  venture  to 
give  a  man  17  mg.  of  the  latter  by  vein  at  a  single  dose,  granted 
that  it  could  be  administered  thus,  yet  if  the  method  is  to  be  of 
value  as  an  indication  of  the  probable  activity  of  different  digitalis 
bodies  for  man  such  a  comparison  should  hold.  Again,  in  testing 
the  liquid  preparation  of  digalen  on  frogs  Hale  found  the  most 
