Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ? 
March,  1921.  J 
Comment  on  the  Paper. 
229 
COMMENT  ON  THE  PAPER  BY  COUCH  AND  GILTNER 
ON  "AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  ECHINACEA 
THERAPY." 
By  James  H.  Beal. 
It  is  regrettable  that  a  larger  proportion  of  the  interesting 
paper  by  Couch  and  Giltner  is  not  covered  by  the  abstract,  especially 
the  tables  of  experiments,  since  it  is  from  a  study  of  the  latter 
that  we  are  able  to  appreciate  the  difference  in  the  methods  of 
deduction  commonly  employed  by  the  laboratory  worker  than  those 
employed  by  the  clinician  who  administers  a  drug  with  therapeutic 
intent. 
In  these  experiments  varies  authentic  preparations  of  echina- 
cea, or  of  echinacea  combined  with  inula,  were  administered  to 
guinea-pigs  either  prior  to  or  subsequent  to  intoxication  or  infec- 
tion with  various  poisons  or  organisms,  and  the  results  compared 
with  those  observed  in  control  animals  with  the  same  intoxications 
or  infections,  but  which  did  not  receive  echinacea  treatment. 
In  the  experiments  with  tetanus  25  animals  were  each  given 
3  times  the  minimum  fatal  dose  of  a  carefully  standardized  tetanus 
toxin.  Six  of  the  animals  were  kept  as  controls,  while  the  remain- 
der received  treatment  with  echinacea.  All  of  the  poisoned  animals 
died,  but  whereas  the  average  survival  period  of  the  controls  was 
approximately  2.25  days,  the  average  survival  period  of  the  echina- 
cea treated  animals  (so  far  as  it  can  be  determined  from  an  inspec- 
tion of  the  table)  was  approximately  2.65  days.* 
The  authors'  conclusion  is  that  "neither  the  protective  treat- 
ment nor  the  remedial  treatment,  nor  a  combination  of  the  two 
appeared  to  influence  the  course  of  the  disease,"  but  the  average 
clinician  would  be  inclined  to  maintain  that  the  results  as  stated  in 
the  table  show  a  perceptible  margin  of  evidence  in  favor  of  echinacea 
treatment. 
In  the  experiments  with  botulinus  toxin,  ten  times  the  minimum 
fatal  dose  was  administered  to  each  of  five  guinea-pigs,  of  which 
two  were  kept  as  controls.    As  shown  by  the  table,  the  average 
*In  these  calculations  the  statement  ^ess  than  3  days"  is  taken  as  2J/2 
days  for  both  controls  and  treated  animals.  Twenty-nine  animals  were  used, 
but  four  of  them  were  employed  in  a  side  test  with  alcohol  of  the  same 
strength  as  the  echinacea  preparations. 
