NOTE UPON CICUTA (CONIUM MACULATUM) AND CONICINE.

Since Stoerck, who first extolled the virtues of Hemlock, this plant has undergone numerous alterations of credit and neglect which may be explained by the want of certainty, or rather by the irregularity, of its action.

An important work has just appeared on this subject, executed conjointly by a physician and pharmacien of Lyons, MM. Devay and Guillermond. This work, which developes and completes what has been said upon the medicinal virtues of hemlock, furnishes a new element which will fix, we believe, the therapeutic value of that substance. It is the substitution of the seed like fruits for the other parts of the plant. We will briefly explain the motive of that preference.

The principle to which cicuta owes both its toxicological and therapeutic powers has received the names of cicuta, coneine and conicine, the last of which is now generally adopted. It is a volatile alkaloid, of a sharp penetrating, disagreeable smell, somewhat like that of mice. It is of an oily consistence, and easily decomposed by heat. In these respects it resembles nicotine. But, a char­ac­ter­is­tic readily recognized and which distinguishes it from the latter, when shaken with water it again floats upon the surface, while nicotine is immediately dissolved by that liquid.

The volatility of conicine, the readiness with which it is {300} decomposed by heat or time alone, are such that the Lyonese experimenters do not hesitate to propose the abandonment both of the herb itself, and of all the pharmaceutic forms prepared by the aid of heat, or in which the conicine is susceptible of undergoing decomposition. We think this is going rather too far. The extracts of cicuta prepared with care, and particularly those prepared in vacuo, are of daily service. We have been able to verify by trituration with potassa, the presence of conicine in a hydro-alcoholic extract, a number of years old. But, not­with­stand­ing, recognizing the fact that the preparations of cicuta of this kind are often inert, we agree with the experimenters that it is of consequence to escape from such a state of things.

The tincture of cicuta prepared with the fresh plant, is a very beautiful product, but made from parts of the plant containing but a small proportion of conicine, or at all events containing it in very variable proportions, may be inert or irregular in its action. What then is to be done? employ conicine itself? But the preparation of the alkaloid is difficult; it is promptly decomposed by contact with the air and light, and the apportionment of its dose, offers serious inconveniences.

There is a organ of the plant in which its active principle is found in larger and more constant proportion, and under conditions in which it is better preserved than in any other; that organ is the fruit. It is at the moment of its most perfect development, when the plant commences to flower, that it contains the largest proportion of conicine, and that the principle is most perfectly elaborated. At a later period it disappears and is fixed in the fruit, in which it is concentrated in great quantity. It is in the fruit that we seek it when we wish to extract it. It is in the fruit we should seek it for medical use.

PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS. FORMULÆ.—“Having shown by experiment as well as by reasoning, that the fruit of the cicuta (akène) should henceforth replace all the preparations of the plant employed in medicine: we have to make known the use we have made of this fact. It is important in the first {301} place, that the fruit employed should be that of the great cicuta, and that it should not be mingled with seeds of the other umbelliferæ. They may be known by being almost globular with five crenelated sides.

When the fruit is divided, the sides fold in the form of a crescent. They do not possess like most of the other umbelliferæ, a peculiar aromatic odor. This appears to be covered by that of conicine. The fool’s parsley, (æthusa cynapium,) the phellandrium aquaticum, the anise, bear fruits which, physically, have much resemblance to that of the cicuta; but, when the latter is pulverized, the char­ac­ter­is­tic odor which is developed is sufficient to enable us readily to recognize it. Another precaution to be taken is in relation to the time at which the fruit should be collected. Those which were employed in our experiments and preparations had reached the perfection of their maturity. It is then it should be collected for medical use, because then it is isolated, so to speak, from the plant which produces it; the active principle exists then in them in a true state of concentration and permanence.

1st. FORMULÆ FOR INTERNAL USE.—“The fruit of the cicuta does not need any complicated pharmaceutic preparation. It is active enough of itself to be employed in its natural condition. A very simple manipulation only seems necessary to facilitate its use. It is to reduce it to powder and to form it into pills, which, coated with sugar, may be preserved an indefinite time. We have thought best to give the pills two degrees of strength according to the following formulæ.

“Pills of Cicuta, No. 1.—Take one gramme of the fruit of the cicuta recently pulverized; make with a sufficient quantity of sugar and of syrup a mass, to be divided into 100 pills. These are to be covered with sugar; each pill will weigh about 10 centigrammes. These are suited to persons who are not yet habituated to the use of the drug, and who are of a delicate constitution. We commence with two pills the first day, and the dose is augmented day by day to 10, 15, or 20. It is then most convenient to employ pills No. 2. {302}

Pills No. 2.—Take 5 grammes of the recently powdered fruit of the cicuta; incorporate them with a sufficient quantity of gum and sugar; divide as before into 100 pills, which are to be enveloped with sugar, each pill will weigh about 25 centigrammes.

“We will finish the series of internal medicines by the formula of a syrup of conicine, which will be of the greatest utility to practitioners.

“Exhaust 10 grammes of the fruit of the cicuta, with alcohol at 28° C. (82 F.) so as to obtain 60 grammes, to which 3000 grammes of syrup, aromatised, ad libitum, are to be added.

“Thirty grammes of this syrup represent 1 decigramme of the fruit or a milligramme of conicine. A teaspoonful being the equivalent of 30 grammes of syrup, the patient who takes one pill of No. 2. will be able to take half a teaspoonful of the syrup.

FORMULA FOR EXTERNAL USE.—Balm of Conicine.—The process which we employ to prepare the balm of conicine authorizes us to give it that name. It is in effect, a true solution in lard freed from the principles which retain it in combination, and as pure as the processes we have proposed for its extraction will permit. Thus, after having exhausted the fruit by alcohol, and after having separated as completely as possible the conicine by means of ether and caustic potash, confining ourselves to the precautions indicated below, we take: the ether of cicuta, obtained by the exhaustion of 100 grammes of the fruit, and 300 grammes of recently washed lard. We begin by evaporating the ether in the open air, that is, by pouring it little by little in a plate, and as soon as the greater part of it has been eliminated, and the conicine commences to appear upon the plate in the form of little yellow drops, separating themselves from the vehicle, the lard is to be incorporated with it by degrees, the whole being constantly stirred to facilitate the evaporation of the ether. A balm of conicine is thus obtained, exceedingly active and convenient for use. {303}

The following is the mode of preparing the ether of cicuta: “The alcoholic tincture obtained by the complete exhaustion of 100 grammes of the fruit, is to be evaporated to the consistence of a syrup, and the alcohol is to be replaced by a small quantity of water. This leaves undissolved a thick green oil, entirely soluble in ether, and of which the quantity reaches the weight of 30 grammes. After having separated this green oil, we wash with ether the product of the alcoholic evaporation and obtain a yellowish resinous substance, which has no action on litmus paper and which has a strong odor, sui generis, different from that of conicine.

After having submitted the mother waters of the alcoholic extract to this preliminary treatment, we have introduced them into a flask having a capacity three times as great as their volume, and treated them successively with a concentrated solution of caustic potash and rectified sulphuric ether. Immediately after the addition of the potash, a well marked odor of conicine was manifest in the mixture, and the ether became strongly alkaline. We left the same ether, (about 20 grammes) upon the mixture for twelve hours, often agitating it. It was then decanted and replaced by fresh ether, and this was replaced until the ether became nearly insensible to litmus paper. We remarked that the first 20 grammes of ether took up nearly all the alkaloid. One hundred grammes of well rectified ether was sufficient to remove almost completely the alkaloid from the extractive and alkaline mixture derived from 100 grammes of the fruit of the cicuta.

Tincture of the fruit,100 grammes.
Lime water,900 grammes.

Filter at the end of a few minutes.

“In this preparation we have thought best to employ lime water instead of simple water. We have remarked previously that the tincture of cicuta possessed no smell of conicine, but when lime water was added, the odor was instantly developed in a high dagree. The conicine is disengaged by the lime {304} from its saline combination, and remains free, dissolved in the water.”

MM. Devay and Guillermond, who, in their work, have been so just in their deductions, fail here, we think, in denominating syrup, injection, &c., of conicine, the various preparations of the fruits of the cicuta. It is only perhaps a matter of form, but it is important to avoid in materia medica a matter of form which may give rise to a false idea of things, which may in a word, induce error.

We have only occupied ourselves with the pharmacological part of the work of MM. Devay and Guillermond. The Bulletin de Therapeutique will soon offer an appreciation of its therapeutical portion.—Dorvault.—Bulletin de Therapeutique.

[The facts on which the preference of the seeds of conium to the preparations in ordinary use are founded, are by no means new. They have been long known and frequently commented on. From six lbs. of the fresh and nine of the dried fruit, Geiger obtained an ounce of conia, or, as the French chemists prefer to call it, conicine; while from 100 lbs. of the fresh herb, he procured only a drachm. The fresh dried herb exhibited only traces of it. The extract prepared from the herb partakes necessarily of its uncertainty and inactivity. Most of what is found in the shop is entirely inert; while the best, that of Tilden or of Currie, which are superior to the best English extract we have seen, possess comparatively little power. If conium is to be retained in the materia media, it is evident that we should employ that part of the plant in which the active principle is contained in the greatest quantity, and in a condition least liable to alteration. We are as yet, however, very imperfectly acquainted with the properties, either medicinal or poisonous of conium; and, as the continuation of the memoir of MM. Devay and Guillermond promises us a solution of the question, we await it with much interest.]—ED. NEW YORK JOURNAL OF PHARMACY.

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