The chemical and physiological assay of digitalis tinctures / by George Barger and W. Vernon Shaw.

  • George Barger
Date:
[1904?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The chemical and physiological assay of digitalis tinctures / by George Barger and W. Vernon Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE CHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASSAY OF DIGITALIS TINCTURES.1 By Gf.orge Barger, M.A., D.Sc., AND W. Vernon Shaw, M.A., M.D. In many cases the active principle of a pharmaceutical pre¬ paration being well known and well characterised, chemical assay methods have been worked out which give perfectly reliable results. In others, such as that of diphtheria antitoxin, no such method being possible at present, we must rely entirely upon physiological methods. Between these extremes there are a number of cases in which physiological and chemical methods contend for superiority, and among these is that of Digitalis. A chemical method for the quantitative estimation of the physiologically active glucosides in this plant has been proposed by Keller (Her. cl. deutsch. pharm. Gcs., 1897, 7, 125). Of these glucosides, digitoxin is the chief contributor to the activity of the drug. This led Ziegenbein (Archiv der Pharmacie, 1902, 240, 454) to compare the physiological activity of a number of samples of Digitalis leaves with the amount of digitoxin found in them by Keller's method. He finds that there is no relation between these twTo quantities, and concludes that the chemical assay method is unsatisfactory, but that the frog’s heart satisfies all the demands which can reasonably be made. In the course of an examination of a series of tinctures which had been obtained from various commercial sources, and had been prepared according to the directions of the British Pharma¬ copoeia, third edition, we were led to a comparative study of 1 Contributed to the British Pharmaceutical Conference at Sheffield, August, 1004, and reprinted from “ The Year-Book of Pharmacy
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