206 
ON  COLCHICIA. 
that  it  was  known  to  Dioscorides  and  his  cotemporaries  as  an 
active  drug.  For  a  long  time  it  fell  into  disrepute,  and  until 
the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  scarcely,  if  at  all, 
employed  as  a  remedial  agent.  It  was  reintroduced  to  the  notice 
of  the  medical  profession  by  Baron  Storck,  about  the  year  1763, 
and  since  then  both  the  seeds  and  corms  have  been  extensively 
employed  in  the  treatment  of  various  diseases. 
Colchicum  belongs  to  the  natural  order  Melanthacese  which 
embraces  a  number  of  poisonous  plants ;  among  which  are 
Veratrum  album,  V.  sabadilla,  V.  viride,  and  Asagraea  officinalis, 
all  of  which  contain  veratria,  and  as  in  some  of  its  therapeutical 
effects,  colchicum  resembles  veratria,  this  alkaloid  was  formerly 
supposed  really  to  be  the  active  principle  of  the  plant.  In 
fact,  in  the  year  1820,  Pelletier  and  Caventou  announced  the  ex- 
istence of  supergallate  of  veratria  in  the  corms.  This  statement 
was  received  as  correct  until  1833,  when  Geiger  and  Hess  stated 
that  they  had  succeeded  in  isolating  from  colchicum  seeds  a  pecu- 
liar alkaloid,  to  which  they  gave  the  appropriate  name  of  colchi- 
cine, and  which,  they  stated,  differed  from  veratria  in  being 
crystallizable,  not  sternutatory,  more  soluble  in  water  and  less 
acrid  to  the  taste  than  veratria.  Since  then  some  chemists  have 
denied  the  existence  of  a  distinct  alkaloid  colchicia,  and  have 
asserted  that  it  was  identical  with  veratria ;  but  within  a  few 
years  it  has  been  pretty  conclusively  shown  that  colchicum  owes 
its  activity  to  a  principle  essentially  different. 
In  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  Vol.  29,  page  235,  is 
a  translation  of  an  article  by  L.  Oberlin,  who  states  that  he  has 
obtained  from  meadow  saffron  seeds  a  white,  crystallizable,  neu- 
tral principle  containing  nitrogen,  which  he  calls  colchiceine, 
and  which  although  in  some  of  its  reactions  it  resembles  colchicia, 
with  other  reagents  it  behaves  very  differently  from  that  sub- 
stance. One  very  characteristic  distinction  is  the  fact  that  this 
colchiceine  is  not  precipitated  by  tannic  acid,  and  does  not 
affect  reddened  litmus  paper  ;  properties  which  cut  it  off  entirely 
from  the  class  of  vegetable  alkalies.  L.  Oberlin  appears  to  con- 
sider this  neutral  substance  as  the  real  active  principle,  and  to 
doubt  the  existence  of  an  organic  alkaloid  in  the  plant ;  but  I 
think  the  following  experiments  will  show  that  the  activity  of 
