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XX.—On the Connection between Chemical Constitution and Physiological Action. Part II.—On the Physiological Action of the Ammonium Bases derived from Atropia and Conia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

A. Crum Brown  and
Thomas R. Fraser
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Extract

Atropia is a nitrile base, obtained from Atropa Belladonna. All we know of its constitution is, that by the action of strong acids and bases it is decomposed, in accordance with the equation—

So that atropia may be considered as tropia, in which one atom of hydrogen has been replaced by tropyl, the radical of tropic acid.

Atropia has a somewhat complicated physiological action, for it directly influences the functions of the cerebro-spinal and sympathetic nervous systems. The principal effects produced by it on the former system are paralysis of the sensory and motor nerves, and excitation of the spinal cord. By its action on the sympathetic nerves, it influences the contraction of the unstriped muscles; but as the mechanism of this action is by no means exactly defined, we shall merely allude to it in our comparison of the actions of the methyl and ethyl derivatives, with those of the alkaloid itself. In addition to these general actions, atropia influences, in a special manner, the functions of the vagi nerves and of the iris, suspending the cardiac inhibitory power of the former, and producing contraction of the latter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 1869 , pp. 693 - 739
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1869

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References

page 693 note * Kraut, “Annalen du Ch. u. Ph.” band cxxviii. 1863, p, 280; band cxxxiii. 1865, p. 87; band cxlviii. 1868, p. 236. Lossen, ibid, band cxxxi. 1864, p. 43; band cxxxviii. 1866, p. 230.

page 694 note * We shall give details of the chemical relations of the methyl derivatives of atropia on some other occasion.

page 694 note † We have employed the phrase “lethal activity” as a substitute for the French “l'activité toxique,” or death-producing action.

page 697 note * Transactions of the Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xxv. part 1, 1867–68, p. 153.

page 701 note * The frogs used in Experiments XXXVI., XXXVII., and XL. had been kept in the laboratory for more than two months before the performance of each experiment. The convulsive and tetanic effects of atropia appear to be more readily produced in frogs that have been thus kept, than in those recently obtained from their natural habitat.

page 702 note * Authorities differ somewhat in their interpretation of the relations of these actions, some considering that the motor nerves are paralysed more rapidly than the sensory (Botkin, &c.), and others that the sensory are paralysed more rapidly than the motor (Lemattre, Meuriot, &c.).

page 705 note * Virchow's Archiv. Bd. xxiv. 1862, p. 89.

page 705 note † Untersuchungen aus dem Physiologischen Laboratorium in Würzburg, 1tes heft, 1867, p. 43.

page 705 note ‡ De la Méthod Physiologique en Thérapeutique et de ses Applications à l'étude de la Belladonne, 1868, p. 76.

page 706 note * Throughout the experiment the strength of the galvanic current was the same as that which produced stoppage of the heart's contractions before the administration of sulphate of methylatropium.

page 708 note * Quoted by Meuriot, op. cit. p. 118, from Nederlandsch Lancet, 1853.

page 712 note * Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, bd. Ixxxix. 1854, p. 129.

page 712 note † Transactions Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xiii. 1837, pp. 398–415.

page 712 note ‡ Wochenblatt der Gesellschaft der Aerzte zu Wien, 1856; and Lehrbuch der Pharmacologie, 1869, p. 531.

page 712 note § Journ. f. Pharm, i. 44.

page 712 note ∥ Virchow's Archiv. bd. x. 1856, p. 238.

page 712 note ¶ Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, 1866, pp. 45, 55, 71, 81.

page 724 note * We have not as yet succeeded in obtaining a pure specimen of normal conia; and the quantities of ordinary conia at our disposal have not been sufficient to enable us to attempt a separation of normal conia from methyl-conia.