ON  ACONITE. 
513 
ON  ACONITE. 
By  Thos.  B.  Groves,  F.C.S. 
Of  the  two  questions  relating  to  aconite,  on  which  I  have  un- 
dertaken to  report,  the  first  is,  "  Does  Aconite  owe  any  of  its 
activity  to  the  volatile  acrid  body  said  to  exist  in  it  ?"  I  cannot 
find  that  this  acrid  body  said  to  exist  in  aconite  has  yet  been 
isolated.  Its  existence  has  simply  been  inferred  from  certain 
circumstances  observed  in  the  pharmaceutical  treatment  of  the 
plant,  and  from  analogy. 
M.  Geiger  was  the  first  to  start  the  theory  that  aconite  owed 
its  acridity  to  one  body,  its  narcotic  property  to  another  ;  and 
affirmed  that  the  former  was  easily  destroyed,  the  latter  not  so 
easily.  This  ready  destructibility  is  supposed  by  M.  Geiger  to 
be  a  sufficient  reason  for  its  non-production ;  but  Mr.  Wesse 
states  that  ordinary  aconite,  containing,  as  he  also  asserts,  the 
two  principles  intimately  combined,  can  be  purified  from  the  acrid 
principle  by  several  solutions  in  acid  and  precipitations  by  alkali. 
He  did  not,  however,  succeed  in  isolating  it.  Query,  whether 
he  did  not  really,  by  this  mode  of  procedure,  simply  lose  the 
greater  portion  of  the  aconitine  (which  is  well  known  to  be  solu- 
ble in  150  parts  of  cold  water),  leaving  only  the  inert  matter 
with  which  the  commercial  article  is  so  largely  contaminated. 
Volatility  has  been  accorded  to  this  supposed  acrid  body,  in 
consequence  of  the  ready  dissipation,  as  some  have  affirmed,  of 
the  activity  of  aconite  by  simple  drying  or  by  boiling  in  water. 
But  Christison  denies  the  former  statement  as  regards  Aconitum 
Napellus,  asserting,  on  the  contrary,  that  when  carefully  dried, 
either  by  water-bath  or  spontaneously,  its  activity  is  not  much 
impaired ;  on  the  other  hand,  travellers  report  that  the  Swedes 
eat  as  a  pot-herb  one  species  of  aconite  when  boiled.  It  seems 
to  me  that  these  views  may  have  their  origin  solely  in  the  ready 
destructibility  of  aconitine  (a  fact  no  one  will  gainsay  who  has 
occupied  himself  in  its  preparation),  aided  by  the  argument  from 
analogy  of  some  of  the  other  Ranuneulacece.  The  genera  Clema- 
tis, Anemone,  Ranunculus,  furnish  volatile,  acrid,  oily,  or  con- 
crete bodies,  which  fairly  represent  the  powers  of  the  plants 
whence  they  are  derived.  Of  these  the  Anemonine  has  been  fully 
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