Myrobalan

“ Myrobalans is a safe and effective aperient, and given to natives in the following form, has been found to act very satisfactorily: Take of Myrobalans bruised 6, Cinnamon or Cloves bruised 1 drachm, Water or Milk 4 ounces; boil for ten minutes, strain, and set aside till cold. This quantity taken at a draught generally produces on an adult native three or four copious stools without griping, vomiting, or other ill effects. Youths from twelve to fourteen years require only half the above quantity, or even less. For infants and young children Castor Oil or Senna is preferable as an aperient. ”

“ Haly Abbas has correctly remarked, that the alphi are to be cured by the same sort of remedies as lepra (leuce?) only that they do not require so strong applications. The Arabians greatly commend their myrobalans with ginger, mastich, parsley, &c. Their internal applications are powerful detergents and escharotics, such as hellebore, natron, sulphur, vinegar, arsenic, copperas, &c. Celsus says nothing of internal remedies, but recommends external applications of a stimulant nature, containing sulphur, alum, nitre, frankincense, alcyonium, &c. ”

“ Of the palm which produces myrobalanum,3056 the most esteemed kind is that grown in Egypt;3057 the dates of which, unlike those of the other kinds, are without stones. Used with astringent wine, they arrest3058 diarrhœa and the catamenia, and promote the cicatrization of wounds. ”

“ The odour and taste are those of the ordinary drug. Pieces of a semi-transparent papery bark are attached to some of the lumps. We extracted the resin of a sample of this myrrh from the territory of the Fadhli, as sent to us by Captain Hunter. Its solution in bisulphide of carbon or petroleum ether was coloured by bromine as stated above, (p. 144) with regard to typical myrrh (Heerabol) from the Somali Country. The name applies to myrrh from the vicinity of Ras Morbat in the same region. ”

“ White mustard is said to be richer than black in myrosin, so that, as explained in the previous article, the pungency of the latter may be often increased by an addition of white mustard. By burning white mustard dried at 100° C., with soda-lime, we obtained from 4·20 to 4·30 per cent. of nitrogen, answering to about 28 per cent. of protein substances. [299] The fixed oil of the seed amounts to 22 per cent. The mucilage as yielded by the epidermis is precipitable by alcohol, neutral lead acetate, or ferric chloride, and is soluble in water after drying. ”

“ The poorly developed nervous system and organs of special sense, the short weak legs, and the weak muscular and large intestinal development, all point to the vegetable nature of the food of this order and the associated sluggish habits, which indications the total absence of offensive armature confirms.
M. Brandt (Recueil) divided the Myriapoda into Myriapoda manducentia and Myriapoda sugentia. The former comprises all those which are provided with mandibles or jaws for seizing or devouring food. ”

“ Fibrin, produced from fibrinogen by a ferment, is a jelly-like substance, coagulable by heat, alcohol, &c. The muscle-albumins include “myosin” or paramyosinogen, a globulin, which by coagulation induces rigor mortis, and the closely related “myosinogen” or myogen; myoglobulin and myoalbumin are also found in muscles. The nucleo-albumins or phospho-globulins are insoluble in water and acids, but soluble in alkalies, and have an acid reaction. “Caseinogen” (after W. D. Halliburton) is the chief albumin of milk; its composition varies with the animal. ”

“ The fungus contains a toxalbumin which has been named “phallin.” The action of this toxalbumin is to dissolve the blood corpuscles; according to Kobert, even one 250,000th dilution produces “polycholie,” with all its consequences, such as the escape of hæmoglobin and its decomposition products in the blood and urine, multiple blood coagulation through the fibrin ferment becoming free, and serious cerebral disturbance. If into a dog, cat, or rabbit, only 0·5 mgrm. of phallin be injected intravenously, within from twenty to thirty minutes blood from a vein shows that the serum has a red colour. ”

“ Phallin is a toxalbumin which destroys the red blood-corpuscles, causing the serum to become red in colour and the urine blood-stained. Fibrin is liberated, and thromboses occur, especially in the liver. The symptoms may be mistaken for phosphorus-poisoning or acute yellow atrophy of the liver. Muscarine affects the nervous system chiefly.
Edible fungi have an agreeable taste and smell, and are firm in substance. ”

“ Hence amboceptors are spoken of as receptors of the third order. They have no other function than that of this double combining power. The action which results is due to the third body—the complement. It will be readily seen that complement must possess at least two groups, a combining or haptophore group which unites with the amboceptor, and an active group which is usually called the zymophore or toxophore group. Complements thus resemble either toxins, where the specific cell (antigen) is injured or killed, or enzymes, in case the cell is likewise dissolved. ”

“ It has been synthesized from I-3-2'-4'-tetramethoxy flayanone by converting this into its isonitroso compound, which yields morin trim ethyl ether on hydrolysis by sulphuric acid. Myricetin or 1-3~3'~4 -5'-penta-oxy flavonol, CMHWOS, found in the rind of Myrica nagi and also in Sicilian sumach, crystallizes in yellow needles which dissolve with a green colour in dilute alkalis. On fusion with caustic alkalis it yields gallic acid and phloroglucin. ”

“ Isn't this a marvellous picture? To see the micro-organism move, evolve and revolve in the midst of normal cells, uncoil and undulate in the fluids which they inhabit, to see them play hide and seek with the blood corpuscles and clumps of fibrin, turn, twist, and rotate as if in a cage, to see these deadly little trypanosomes moving back and forth in every direction displaying their delicate undulating membranes and shoving aside the blood cells that are in their way while by their side the leucocytes, or white corpuscles, lazily extend or retract their pseudopods of protoplasm. ”

“ Detection of Muscarine in the Body.—Muscarine itself is not likely to be taken as a poison or administered; but if it is sought for in the fly-blown agaric, or in the tissues or organs of persons who have been poisoned by the fungus, the process of Brieger appears the best. The process depends upon the fact that muscarine gives a soluble mercuric chloride compound, and is not precipitated by chloride of platinum, whilst most other substances accompanying it give more or less insoluble precipitates. ”

“ The experimental study of the rate of fibrin formation, when different strengths of thrombin solutions are allowed to act upon a fibrinogen solution, leads us to the probable conclusion that the first of these three possibilities is the correct one, and that thrombin therefore exerts a true ferment action upon fibrinogen. It is known that in the reaction, in addition to the formation of fibrin, yet another protein makes its appearance. This is known as fibrinoglobulin, and apparently it arises from the fibrinogen, so that the change would be one of cleavage into fibrin and fibrinoglobulin. ”

“ Of these the longest known and best studied are those which are produced by toxins, and which neutralize the action of the toxins upon the animal organism (anti-toxins) .109 Normal serum also inhibits the action of trypsin and many other enzymes. Another very important group of anti-bodies are the precipitins. If the serum of an animal be injected repeatedly into another animal of different species, a precipitin appears in the serum of the animal treated, which causes a precipitate when added to the serum of the first animal. ”

“ Two other signs of degeneration are the appearance of granules in the body of the cell protoplasm known as metachromatic granules, owing to their different staining propensities, and the polar bodies which are seen in some species of bacteria. Surrounding the mass of mycoprotein, we find in most organisms a capsule or membrane composed, in part at least, of cellulose. This sheath plays a protective part in several ways. During the adult stage of life it protects the mycoprotein, and holds it together. ”

“ Fibrin not only covers the alveolar wall, but crosses this structure and often forms intracapillary plugs. In fact, besides the red blood cells, the serum and the fibrin, one often sees, not only an excess of polymorphonuclear leucocytes in the vessels of the lung, but these appear in process of migration within a few hours after the animal has been exposed.
Animals surviving this stage often succumb later with a typical pneumonic process. Although frequently pseudolobar, the process may be lobar in extent, and as time goes on more definite lobular involvement is frequently encountered. ”

“ The advantage of mixture depends upon the fact that the white mustard seeds have an excess of the ferment myrosin, and the black, whilst somewhat deficient in myrosin, yield a volatile body as compared with the fixed product of the white mustard seeds. ”

“ If not too much of the toxin is given, instead of injuring, it acts as a chemical stimulus to the cell in the manner already described. The cell in response produces more of the specific thing, which in this instance is more receptors which can combine with the toxin, i.e., with its haptophore group. If the stimulus is kept up, more and more of these receptors are produced until an excess for the cell accumulates, which excess is excreted from the individual cell and becomes free in the blood. ”

“ Hence excess of enzyme is free in the blood and the injection of the tuberculin meets it there and a vigorous reaction results. In old, far-advanced cases, no reaction occurs, because the enzymes are all used in decomposing the large amount of tuberculous protein constantly present in the blood. The fact that an animal which has once reacted fails to do so until several months afterward likewise depends on the fact that the excess enzyme is used in the reaction and time must elapse for a further excess to accumulate. ”

“ As an illustration, may be mentioned the myosin-antialbumid formed in the digestion of myosin from muscle-tissue by an alkaline trypsin-solution. This body contains 57.48 per cent. of carbon, 7.67 per cent. of hydrogen, 13.94 per cent. of nitrogen, 1.32 per cent. of sulphur, and 19.59 per cent. of oxygen.177 It is only necessary to compare these figures with those expressive of the composition of myosin-antipeptone, to appreciate how wide a gap there is between these two products of trypsin-proteolysis, and both members of the anti-group. ”

“ We find illustrations of such antiferments in the gastro-intestinal tract, by the presence of which the digestive enzymes are restrained from attacking the proteins of the tissue cells, composing the lining membranes of the intestine. Apparently, there is no reason why the enzymes pepsin, trypsin, etc., which digest so vigorously the various protein foodstuffs should not attack with equal avidity the related proteins present in the mucous membranes of the stomach and small intestine. ”

“ Human immune serum shows no reaction with the blood of any animals except to a slight extent with that of various monkeys, most with the higher, very slight with the lower Old World and scarcely any with New World monkeys.
It is a fact of theoretical interest mainly that if agglutinins and precipitins themselves be injected into an animal they will act as antigens and cause the formation of antiagglutinins or antiprecipitins, which are therefore receptors of the first order since they simply combine with these immune bodies to neutralize their action, have only a combining or haptophore group. ”

“ What makes them even more conspicuous is their lining, once epithelium, but now a swollen, thick, homogeneously staining material, with complete loss of architecture; the material forms (with hematoxylin and eosin) a red band limiting the lung tissue and sharply demarcating it from the exudate within the bronchioles (48, 92) . However, this ribbon of red, often thickened by fibrin deposition, is not always pure, for bacteria thrive in the dead tissue. They occur singly, paired, in chains, and also as circumscribed, dense masses which in size and position, simulate nuclei (162) (Fig. XVI) . ”

“ Often these leucocytes are multilobed and frequently their protoplasm is granulated with phagocytized bacteria. The bacteria are also encountered free in the alveolus along with other elements; namely, red blood cells, strands of fibrin, or precipitated albumin (Fig. XXI) . The bacteria, however, are not particularly conspicuous, for generally they are either single, in pairs, or in chains; and it is only when they become clumped to form large masses, often larger than any normal tissue cell, that they attract attention. ”

“ In this species the superior spine of the lateral anal appendages is very minute, and occasionally present only on one side. The color varies from milk-white to a dark reddish orange. The lighter shades are found in those individuals which have recently shed their skins. The color given in the diagnosis may be considered as that which characterizes the species, being the one to which it finally attains. ”

“ When the action of the heart is laboured and feeble through lack of nervous power, muscarin, or the tincture of Fly Agaric, in a much diluted potency will relieve this trouble. The dose of Muscarin, or Agaricin, is from a sixth to half a grain in a pill. These medicines increase the secretion of tears, saliva, bile, and sweating, but they materially lessen the quantity of urine. Belladonna is found to be the best antidote. ”