Cactus Grandiflorus
The therapeutic value of this plant has been variously estimated by different observers. Experimental evidence as to its action is scanty and no complete chemical examination has ever been made.
Reputable men have testified that some of the plants of the cactus family contain very active principles, but so far experiments seem to prove that cactus grandiflorus has neither the action of digitalis nor that of strychnin. The principal contributions, clinical and experimental, for and against the drug, are set out below.
EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE
O. H. Myers[8] worked with a product which he calls cactina and which he regards as the active principle of the drug. (As no such substance as cactina is described in any materia medica, it is impossible to state what Myers really used.) He found that it had a strychnin-like action and raised the blood-pressure.
Hatcher comes to the conclusion: “Either Myers’ work was a pure fabrication or he was dealing not with cactin but with a substance similar to the pellotin of Heffter, the action of which resembles that of strychnin to a certain extent.”
E. Boinet and J. Boy-Teissier[9] experimented with an aqueous extract, an alcoholic extract, and with an alkaloid which they call “cactine.” They concluded from three sets of experiments on frogs that extract of cactus produces, in ten minutes, a temporary increase in the heart’s action which frequently repeated doses are required to maintain; and that large doses slow the heart and produce arrhythmia.
L. E. Sayre[10] experimented with a preparation of cactus, made from the stem of the plant, by injecting it into the dorsal lymph space of the frog. There was seemingly an increase in the amplitude of the heart’s action and an indication of a strengthened beat or increased force.
R. A. Hatcher[11] states that it is possible that cactus grandiflorus, under certain conditions, may contain a principle with a strychnin-like action. But Hatcher made ten experiments on frogs, four on cats, six on dogs, two on rabbits, and one on a guinea-pig, with Cactina pillets of the Sultan Drug Company and the Cactin of the Abbott Alkaloidal Company. From 1 to 15 pillets in frogs and up to 25 in dogs were used at each dose. In no single instance was there any evidence of a digitalis-like or strychnin-like action, or, in fact, of any decided action of any kind whatever.