The constituents of some cucurbitaceous plants / by Frederick B. Power.

  • Power, Frederick B. (Frederick Belding), 1853-1927.
Date:
[1912?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The constituents of some cucurbitaceous plants / by Frederick B. Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been officially recognized by both the British and United States Pharmacopoeias. In the course of a recent chemical examination of elaterium 1 some quite unexpected and interesting results were obtained. The material employed for this purpose consisted of the best English elaterium, which conformed in its general characters to the require¬ ments of the British Pharmacopoeia. After having isolated the crystalline product known as elaterin, it was subjected to a pro¬ longed process of fractional crystallization, when it was observed not to be homogeneous, but to consist, to the extent of 60-80 per cent., of a substance which is completely devoid of purgative action. This substance which, in its optical behavior, is laevorotatory, is accompanied in the crude elaterin by a substance of apparently the same percentage composition, but which possesses strongly pur¬ gative properties and is dextrorotatory. An examination of the crystalline elaterin of commerce, both of English and German manu¬ facture, showed that this likewise was not of uniform composition, but that it varied considerably in its physical characters and conse¬ quently in its physiological action, for the latter, as already indicated, depends upon the proportion of dextrorotatory substance present. With consideration of the results above described, it was subse¬ quently deemed desirable to make a complete examination of the fresh fruits of Ecballium Elaterium,2 especially as a previous investigator 3 had affirmed that elaterin does not exist in the fruit as such but in the form of a glucoside. In the course of this research it was found, however, that the elaterin is present in a free state, and, furthermore, that various other products which had heretofore been regarded as definite constituents of the fruit, such as the so-called prophetin, eebalin or elateric acid, hydro-elaterin, and elateride, which were mostly amorphous, must have consisted of complex mixtures (compare Gmelin's Handbook of Chemistry, vol. xvii (1866), pp. 364-367). Having ascertained that elaterin as found in commerce, and as recognized by the British and United States Pharmacopoeias, is a mixture of two substances, possessing widely different properties, 1 Power and Moore, Pharm. Journ., 1909, 83, pp. 501-504. 2 Power and Moore, Journ. Chem. Soc., 1909, 95, pp. 1985-1993. Com¬ pare also Moore, Ibid., 1910, g7, pp. 1797-1805. 3 Berg, Bull. Soc. Chim., 1897 [iii], 17, p. 85.