Pharmacopedia, a commentary on the British pharmacopoeia, 1898 / by Edmund White ... and John Humphrey.
- Edmund White
- Date:
- 1901
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Pharmacopedia, a commentary on the British pharmacopoeia, 1898 / by Edmund White ... and John Humphrey. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
18/724 page 16
![for The chief constituents, etc., to end of line 34, read The hemp plant yields, on distillation, a small quantity of volatile oil, which consists chiefly of a sesquiterpene (cannabene), but some- times also contains traces of a crystalline paraffin. To that oil, which disappears on keeping the drug under ordinary conditions for twelve months, the exhilarating effect of fresh ganja has been ascribed, but the narcotic effect is due to some other constituent of the peculiar secretion of the plant. That secretion is of an oily nature, and is probably formed in the glands, as a bye-product qf metabolism, in a similar manner to the contents of the glands (lupulin) of the hop. As in the latter instance, also, the secretion of the hemp plant contains resin, volatile oil, fat, wax, and choline, while an inactive resin-acid has also been extracted from it. The resin (cannabin or cannabinon) has been obtained as a soft, brown, neutral substance, soluble in go per cent, alcohol, ether, beneene, and other organic solvents. When unaltered, it is capable of producing a powerful narcotic effect, but it tends to become inert on exposure to the air, its loss of activity being apparently due to oxidation. The potency of ganja diminishes in a similar manner when the drug is stored under ordinary conditions, and it has been found that, in proportion as the drug becomes less active, the quantity of inert resin it contains increases. When the exudation is collected from the fresh flowering tops of the Indian hemp plant and allowed to consolidate into an oily resinous mass, it constitutes the greenish- brown substance known as charas after hemp insert and sets to a sticky, semi-solid, odourless mass when cooled below 60° C. Cannabinol, CisHaiOa, has a powerful narcotic action, but it gradually becomes inactive when exposed to the air, owing to its conversion into an inert resinous substance. It is soluble in go per cent, alcohol, ether, benzene, and organic solvents generally. As much as 33 per cent, of cannabinol has been obtained from charas, and it has also been extracted frqm various active preparations of Indian hemp. It has been shown to be a mixture of at least two compounds, one of which (C2iH260-2) has since been named cannabinol, but as the new compound has been proved to have practically no physiological activity, it seems desirable to retain the name for the active substance to which it was originally applied. No peculiar alkaloid has been found in Indian hemp, Note the suggestion that the bitterness of the drug is probably chiefly due to an anhydride or lactone which, in the presence of an alkali, is converted into an alkaline salt devoid of bitterness, though it still retains the purgative properties of the original bitter substance {P.J. [4]. 15, 140). for sai read said for Alpis melifica read Apis mellifica for Gentianae read Gentianacese for choral read chloral after hydrochloric acid insert Cadmium iodide is used instead ot potassium iodide in the test for free chlorine, apparently because the potassium salt is less stable and may contain free iodine, which would give a blue coloration with the mucilage of starch whether free chlorine were present or not. for d-linalol read d-linalool](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21297216_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
