researches of Vauquelin[1] and of Pettenkofer[2] do not lead to any pointed results. The presence of hydrocyanic acid indicated by Robert,[3] would not account for the very peculiar effects of ergot, and has besides been denied by Wiggers. Winkler obtained various principles from it, and among the rest a thick, rancid, slightly acrid oil, and a nauseous, sweetish, acrid fluid; but he did not determine, any more than his predecessors, in which of these principles the active properties of the spur reside.[4] Wiggers supplied more definite information on the subject. He denies the presence of hydrocyanic acid, and says he found ergot to consist chiefly of a heavy-smelling fixed oil, fungin, albumen, osmazome, waxy matter, and an extractive substance of a strong, peculiar taste and smell, in which, from experiments on animals, he was led to infer that its active properties reside. I have obtained all his chief results, except the most important of them; for the substance which ought to have been his ergotin was destitute of marked taste or smell of any kind.[5] Dr. Wright too could not obtain the ergotin of Wiggers, and concludes from his own experiments, that the spur consists of fungin, modified starch, mucilage, gluten, osmazome, colouring matter, various salts, and thirty-one per cent. of fixed oil, in which the active properties of the poison seemed to him to reside.[6] Buchner, however, thinks that the oil is not itself active, but owes its apparent energy to an acrid principle which alcohol removes from it, and which is not removed from the crude substance in separating the oil in the usual way by sulphuric ether, unless the ether be somewhat alcoholized.[7] However this may be, it seems ascertained by the experiments of Dr. Wright, that the fixed oil, obtained by means of common ether, concentrates in itself the peculiar properties possessed by ergot, either in small doses as a medicine, or in a single large dose as a poison.
Effects of Spurred Rye on Man and Animals.—Before proceeding to relate the effects of this poison on man, it should be mentioned, that at different times doubts have been entertained, whether the baneful effects ascribed to it might not really arise from some other cause. But independently of the connexion which has been frequently traced between the poison and the diseases imputed to it in the human subject, the question has been set at rest by the experiments which have been tried on animals, and which indeed were instituted with a view to settle the point in dispute.
The experiments hitherto made on animals are variable in their results, yet sufficient to show that spurred rye is an active poison of a very peculiar kind. According to the observations collected by Dr. Robert from a variety of authors, it follows that it is injurious
- ↑ Bulletins de la Soc. Philomatique, 1817, 58.
- ↑ Buchner's Repertorium für die Pharmacie, iii. 65.
- ↑ Rust's Magazin, xxv. 43, also Keyl, Dissertatio de Secali Cornuto ejusque vi in corpus humanum salubri et noxia.
- ↑ Rust's Mag. für die gesammte Heilk. xxv. 47.
- ↑ Annalen der Pharmacie, i. 159.
- ↑ Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, lii. 302, and liv. 51.
- ↑ Repertorium für die Pharmacie, lxxv. 168.
