Diseases of the stomach and intestines : a manual of clinical therapeutics for the student and practitioner / by Dujardin-Beaumetz ; tr. from the 4th French ed. by E.P. Hurd.

Georges Octave Dujardin-Beaumetz

Date:: 1886

Credit: Diseases of the stomach and intestines : a manual of clinical therapeutics for the student and practitioner / by Dujardin-Beaumetz ; tr. from the 4th French ed. by E.P. Hurd. 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.

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$Marty has shown, however, that the bark of the stems of the pomegran- ate possesses anthelmintic properties as certain as those of the hark of the roots, and that these properties also exist intact in the medium-sized branches. The decoction seems to be the preferable preparation; it is made as follows: Take of: Fresh bark of the root, or of the stems of pomegranate, . . 60 grammes (§ ii). Hot water, 750 (| xxv). Eeduce the bark to small fragments, and pour on the hot water; let macerate twenty-four hours, then evaporate down to 500 grammes (Oj.) The ethereal extract and the aqueous extract do not give satisfactory results.* Alkaloids of the Pomegkanate. In a note communicated to the Academy of Sciences, March 31st, 1829, Tanret points out the existence of four alkaloids in the pomegranate. To obtain these alkaloids, Tanret begins by treating first with water the powder of the bark mixed with milk of lime, then by chloroform. To separate the different alkaloids, he avails himself of the property which bicarbonate of soda has of decomposing the salts of two of them, while it is without action on those of the two others; he also puts to profit the great hygrometricity of two of their sulphates. Thus, treatments by bicarbonate of soda and caustic soda give two mixtures, which are transformed into sulphates and allowed to crystallize. The crystals being spread upon blotting paper, the deliquescent sulphates, (owing to the vapor of water in the air) penetrate the paper, whence they are extracted by an after process; the others remain crystallized upon the paper. Having the salts, the alkaloids are easily separated. In operating in this way, there is obtained with bicarbonate of soda a liquid and dextrogyrus alkaloid, and a crystallized alkaloid without action on polarized light; with caustic soda two liquid alkaloids, the one lasvogy- rus, the other without rotatory power. These alkaloids are all volatile. Tanret has designated the two alkaloids not displaced from their salts by bicarbonate of soda under the name of pelletierine (C16H15M)2) and of isopelletierine, and he has described those which are displaced by bi- carbonate of soda under the name of pseudo-pelletierine, C18H15N02 and methyl-pelletierine, (C18H]7lSr02). f The experiments which Dujardin-Beaumetz and De Kochmure have made with pelletierine have been made on frogs, hares and leeches. The leech, in solutions of 2.1000, rapidly loses the property of contract- ing its suckers; in two minutes it loses its power of attaching itself to objects, and in fifteen minutes all its movements are annihilated, nor can it be recalled to life. When the experiment is tried with isopelletierine, it takes five minutes after the immersion to deprive the buccal sucker of all its properties, and twenty minutes to annihilate all movements; the leech can be revived. * Leopold Deslancls, Arch, de Med., 1833. Bourgeois, Gaz. des Hop, 1854. Laboulbene, Bull, de Ther., 1873. J. Marty, On the Relative Value of the Different Preparations of Pomegranate Bark in the Treatment of Tasnia. Bull, de Ther., t. xliv., 1878. \ Tanret, On the Alkaloids of Pomegranates, 1880.$