possess the specific properties of Quinine and Ipecacuanha, a most valuable drug would be added to our remedies for tropical diseases " (Watt,).
" In dysentry the seeds would seem to be given for the most part in decoction. This was prepared as follows ; ½ to 3 drachms of the seeds were placed in 12 oz. of water, boiled down to 4 oz. and strained. The fluid thus obtained was given in one dose and this was repeated every morning," (p. 72, First Rept. Ind. Drugs. Com.).
According to the late Dr. Amulya Charan Basu, in the very acute stage of dysentry, the bark does more harm than good. It should be used when the more acute symptoms have passed off and in the chronic form of the disease. Only the fresh bark should be employed. Barks even a few days old are almost useless. Liquid extracts and other preparations made from the fresh bark keep well and may be used when the fresh bark is not available, (p. 148. First Rept. Ind. Drugs Com.)
" The powdered bark suspended in a strained decoction or infusion of Plantago ovata is very efficacious in dysentry, where Ipecacuanha cannot be tolerated. (First Ind. Drug. Com. Rept. p. 159).
Chemical composition.— The bark and seeds contain a basic substance (Wrightine), to prepare which the pulverised seeds are treated with carbonic disulphide in a displacement apparatus to remove a fat oil, then dried and exhausted with hot alcohol ; the extract freed from alcohol by distillation, is digested with a small quantity of dilute hydrochloric acid, and the evaporated filtrate is mixed with ammonia or sodic carbonate, which throws down a copious flocculent precipitate, consisting of the impure base.
Wrightine after washing with cold water forms an amorphous powder, insoluble in ether and in carbonic disulphide, soluble in water and alcohol, and especially in dilute acids, with which it forms uncrystallisable salts having like the base itself a persistent bitter taste. The acetic acid solution is precipitated by tannic acid ; the hydrochloric acid solution gives flocculent precipitates with platinic, auric, and mercuric chlorides. (Stenhouse, Phar. Jour. (2), V. 493.) R. Haines (Ibid., VI., 432) states that he obtained the same base from Conessi bark in 1858, and gave a short description of it in the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bombay (New Series IV., 38). He proposed to call it Conessine, and calculates, from the analysis of the free base, and of the platinum salt, the formula C25H22N O.
The seeds have recently been again investigated by Herr Warnecke (Berichte, XIX, 60), who has obtained from them a crystalline alkaloid by exhausting them with ether containing a little hydrochloric acid, digesting the extract with water and precipitating with ammonia, washing the yellow flocculent precipitate with water, and then after drying it over Sulphuric acid dissolving it in petroleum spirit and evaporating. The pure alkaloid is described as occurring in delicate colourless anhydrous needles, having a bitter taste, becoming yellow at 60° to 70°C., and melting at 122°C. The alkaloid readily forms salts with acids, the hydrochlorate being crystalline. It is difficultly soluble in water, but freely soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform,
