Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.
- Friedrich August Flückiger
- Date:
- 1874
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
702/732 (page 678)
![Ergotic Acid, the existence of wliieli has been further proved hy Ganser. It is a volatile body yielding crystallizable salts. Ergot in common with other fungi/ contains a sugar termed Mycose, closely allied to cane sugar, and still more so to Trclicdose, from which it differs only in having a rather less dextrogyre power. Mycose crystallizes in rhombic octohedra, having the composition C^^H^-O^^ + 2H^0. Mitsclierlich obtained of it about one-tenth per cent. It appears that the sugar exuded in the first stage of growth of the fungus,—the so-called rye lioncy-deio,—is in its principal characters different from mycose. Instead of the latter, Mitsclierlich as well as Fiedler and Ludwig, sometimes obtained from ergot, Mannite. The red colouring onatter of ergot is soluble neither in benzol, alcohol, nor ether, but is easily extractable by alcohol or water mixed with a little ammonia, or by a mineral acid (not acetic). From its neutralized alcoholic solution, it may be precipitated by acetate of lead. It appears to contain iron and nitrogen (Winckler, Manassewitz). Spectroscopically examined, we find its solution to extinguish the blue and the green ray. Schoonbroodt in 1866, as well as Ludwig in 1869, ]3ointed out the presence in ergot of Gholestcrin, a crystallizable x^rinciple widely distri- buted in the animal kingdom, and which has been detected in other fungi. It may be isolated by shaking the fat oil of ergot with warm alcohol. Ganser thus obtained 0-036 parts of chloresterin from 100 of the drug. Schoonbroodt also found in ergot. Lactic Acid. Several other chemists have further proved the presence of acetic and formic acids. Starch is entirely wanting in ergot at all times. The drug yields about 3 per cent, of nitrogen, corresponding probably to a large amount of albuminoid matter. Ganser however obtained only 3-2 per cent, of albumin sohiblc in loater. AVhen ergot or its alcoholic extract is treated with an alkali, it yields as products of the decomposition of the albuminoid matters, ammonia or ammonia-bases,—according to Ludwig and Stahl, Mcthylaminc,—accord- ing to others, Trimetliylmninc. Manassewitz, as well as Wenzell, state that phosphate of trimethylamine is present in an aqueous extract of ergot, but Ganser ascertained that no such base -pre-exists in ergot. We have found that the crystals which abound in the extract after it has been kept for some time, are an acid phosphate of sodium and ammonium with a small proportion of sulphate.^ Production and Commerce—Ergot of rye is chiefl}^ imported into London from Vigo in Spain and from Teneriffe; it is also shipped from Hamburg and France. Dr. de Lanessan, writing to one of us from Vigo in 1872, remarks that vast quantities of rye are grown in Galicia, and that owing to the humidity of tlie climate, the grain is extensively ergotizcd,—in fact the parasite is present in one ear out of every three. At the time of harvest the ergots are picked out, and the rye is thus rendered fit for food. Southern and Central Eussia furnish considerable supplies of the drug. In the central parts of Eiu'ope, ergot does not everywhere occur 1 See Miintz in Comptcs Rendus, Ixxvi. odour of herring brine may assist in the (1873) 649. same object. Extraction of the fattj- oil with - The red colour of an alcoholic solution carbon bisulphide may also be recomiuiiided m<ay serve for the detection of small quan- as a test, inasmucli as gootl cereal grains titles of ergot in flour. The reaction with contain but a vcrj' small percentage of fat. potash, and evolution of the characteristic](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21052463_0702.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
