PART II. MATERIA MEDICA. Fucus Vesiculosus. (Lancet, October 25th, 1879.) Of late a preparation known as "anti-fat" has been extensively advertised, both in this country and in America, as possessing remarkable powers of removing superabundant fat. This preparation is said to be a fluid extract of fucus vesiculosus, a common seaweed, known in this country as sea-wrack or bladder-wrack, and in France as chêne marin or laitue marine. It is largely employed on the coast of Scotland and France in the preparation of kelp; whilst in Ireland it is often used for feeding pigs. Like other seaweeds it contains small quantities of alkaline iodides. Fucus vesiculosus was at one time officinal in the Dublin Pharmacopoeia, and it is by no means a new remedy. Pliny describes it under the name of Quercus marina, and says it is useful for pains in the joints and limbs. In the eighteenth century it was largely employed by Gaubius, Aunel, Baster, and others, in the treatment of scrofula, bronchocele, and enlarged glands, and even for scirrhous tumours. Its charcoal, known as Ethiops vegetabilis, was used in the same class of cases. The fucus has also been found useful in skin diseases and asthma. On the discovery of iodine, in 1811, by Courtois, the saltpetre manufacturer of Paris, it for a time fell into disrepute. In the year 1862 its use was revived by Professor Duchesne-Duparc, who whilst using it experimentally in the treatment of psoriasis, found that it possessed the singular property of causing the absorption of fat. The fucus can be taken either as an infusion, made by steeping half an ounce or a small handful in a pint of boiling water, or in the form of pill or liquid extract. The dose of the infusion is about a cupful, but it is so abominably nasty that few people can be induced to take it. The pills contain each three grains of the alcoholic extract; and, to begin with, one is taken in the morning, an hour at least before breakfast, and another in the evening, about three hours after dinner. The dose is increased by a pill a day, until the patient is taking ten every morning and evening. It is directed that the ten pills should be taken dans la même séance, and that a greater interval should not be allowed to elapse between each pill than is necessary for the process of deglution. The fluid extract may be given in drachm doses, and it is said that the best results are obtained when both the solid and liquid extracts are taken. A reduction in weight of from two to five pounds per week has been attained, but the medicine must be taken for some time before this reduction begins. Occasionally, however, the opposite effect is produced, and the patient gets stouter than ever; in fact, fucus has been recommended as an "anti-lean." By some authorities it is stated that the fucus should be gathered at the period of fructification, about the end of June, and that it ought to be rapidly dried in the sun; whilst other and equally eminent authorities insist that it should be gathered only in September, and that it should be allowed to dry slowly in the shade; a high temperature, according to them, destroying its active properties. It is generally agreed, however, that the roots and stalks should be rejected, and that the fucus gathered on the west coast is superior to that of the east. Nothing is known at present as to the mode of action of this drug. Fucus Vesiculosus. M. Conroy. (From a paper read before the Liverpool Chemists' Association, Nov., 20th, 1879, and printed in the Pharm. Journ., 3rd series, x., 433.) This paper contains an interesting résumé of the history and properties of this plant, from which we extract the following: : Fucus vesiculosus, commonly known as bladder-wrack, sea-ware, sea-wrack, black-tang and kelp-ware, belongs to the great natural order of Alge, and, as indicated by its name, to the genus Fucus. Greville applies to it the following special botanical characters :Frond plane, linear, dichotomous, entire at the margin. Air vessels roundish-oval; in pairs. Receptacles mostly elliptical, terminating the branches. The species is very variable; but the varieties pass so insensibly into each other that it is very difficult to strictly define them. Harvey says: "The first and most obvious distinction is in size; some fully developed specimens in fruit being found under an inch in length, while others reach several feet. Other varieties possess elongated air-vessels, or are entirely destitute of any; while others vary in the shape of the fructification, the receptacles being sometimes globose, sometimes ellipsoidal, and occasionally spindle-shaped. Lastly, the frond is frequently spirally twisted. It is a perennial plant, and a native of the British shores, bearing the fructification in the spring. The root is an expanded, black, woody, callous disk. The frond is smooth and glossy, and in colour is a dark olivaceous green, furnished through its whole length with a darker coloured midrib, as thick as a goose-quill at the root, but gradually growing pale and thin. The vesicles, varying in size from a pea to a hazel nut, of thin substance, and their cavities filled with air, are found imbedded in the membraneous part of the frond, near the midrib. The fructification consists of compressed, turgid, solitary or twin receptacles, perforated and filled with a pellucid mucus. Fucus vesiculosus is the commonest and one of the most widely diffused species of the genus. It abounds on the coasts of our own islands, and along the shores of the northern Atlantic, extending to the tropics, and is said to have been found in the southern part of the ocean. The uses made of this weed are manifold. In Northern Europe it is used as thatch and fuel, and when vegetation is scarce, or the land is covered with snow, it furnishes an abundant fodder for cattle, which regularly visit the shore, at the retreat of the tide, in search of it. The Norwegian and Lapland peasants collect and boil it, and when mixed with a coarse meal, feed their pigs, horses, and cattle with it. In Ireland and Scotland it is largely used for similar puposes, and it is said to be both grateful and nourishing to the animals, which become very partial to it. Formerly it was largely used in the manufacture of kelp, which is now used for the manufacture of iodine. Some of its medical properties have been known from early times; the burnt plant, under the name of vegetable ethiops, having long enjoyed considerable celebrity in the treatment of broncocele and scrofulous diseases, the dose being from 10 grs. to 2 drachms. Dr. Russel found the mucus of the vesicles an excellent resolvent, when externally applied to glandular enlargements and other scrofulous tumours. He also gave the expressed juice of the vesicles in glandular affections. Since the discovery of iodine it has fallen into disuse for the treatment of these diseases, its place having been more effectually supplied by that agent and its salts. According to Pereira, its organic constituents are cellulose, mucilage or carageen, mannite, odorous oil, with colouring and bitter matters. The mineral constituents amount to 166 per cent. of the dry fucus, and consist of chlorides and sulphates of sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, phosphates of iron and calcium, silica, and a small quantity of alkaline iodides not exceeding 0.25 per cent. As regards this proportion of iodides, E. Marchaud considers Fucus vesiculosus as one of the poorest species, and mentions that Fucus digitatus contains seven times as much. After this sketch of the earlier history and uses of the sea-weed, Mr. Conroy refers to its recently acquired reputation in the treatment of morbid obesity, and quotes reports on this point lately published by M. Duchesne Duparc, Dr. Godeffroy, and Dr. Fairbank, all of whom speak very favourably of its action. He next proceeds to the pharmacy of this plant, giving in the first place formula for an extract and pills published by M. Dannecy in the Journal de Pharmacie, Nov., 1862. According to this writer the plant should be gathered during its period of fructification, and rapidly dried in the sun until it becomes sufficiently crisp to powder. The coarse powder is macerated for three days in four times its weight of alcohol of 86 per cent. It is then expressed, and the marc again treated in a similar manner with 54° alcohol. The tinctures are then mixed and filtered, the spirit recovered by distillation, and the extract evaporated to a suitable consistence. Of this hydro-alcoholic extract, which is one-fifteenth the weight of the dry plant, pills are made according to the following formula:30 grams. 5 Ext. Fuci. Vesic. Mix and divide into pills of 25 centigrams each (3.75 grains). Three of these pills, he says, may be taken daily in the beginning, and gradually increased to twenty-four pills daily, a quantity which has often been attained without the slightest derangement of the stomach. Mr. Conroy agrees with M. Dannecy as to the necessity of rapidly drying the fucus in the sun till it becomes crisp, if it is to be used in the dried state; for owing to careless drying it is often met with in a half rotten condition. He prefers, however, to work on the fresh plant, and thus avoid any risk on that score. Several experiments, made with the object of arriving at the relative values of the fresh and dried plant, gave the following average results : 100 parts of fresh fucus dried under ordinary atmospheric influences, in summer weather, yielded 33 parts, nearly equal to onethird. 100 parts dried at 212° F., until it ceases to lose weight, produced 26 parts, or a little over one-fourth; therefore, for all practical purposes, we may say that 1 part of air-dried fucus is equivalent to 3 parts of the fresh plant, and that 1 part thoroughly dried at 212° F., is equivalent to 4 parts of the fresh plant. Using freshly gathered fucus, the following formula will produce a very fine fluid extract : Fresh Fucus Vesiculosus . 7 lbs. 1 gallon. Thoroughly cut and crush the fucus, and macerate it for a couple of days in half a gallon of the spirit, then press, and repeat the process with the remainder of the spirit. Reserve 35 fluid ounces of the first liquor, distil the spirit from the remainder of both liquors, and evaporate to a soft extract. Dissolve this in the reserved 35 fluid ounces, make the measurement up to 40 fluid ounces with proof spirit, and filter after a few hours; 1 fluid ounce of this extract is equal to 1 ounce of the air-dried plant or to 3 ounces of the fresh. For the solid extract use the same menstruum and exhaust as above, but evaporate the whole of the liquors to a suitable pilular extract. 1 part of this hydro-alcoholic extract is equal to 7:33 parts of the air-dried plant, or to 22 parts of the fresh. To make these extracts from the air-dried fucus it would be necessary to use a menstruum consisting of 2 parts of proof spirit and 1 part of water, which would be equivalent to using proof spirit on the fresh plant; for it will be seen from the above formula that 1 gallon of proof spirit is used for 7 pounds of the fresh plant, and, as this weight only represents 2 pounds, or one-third of the dry plant, it is evident that the 5 pounds lost by drying should be added to the gallon of proof spirit, in order to have the same spiritstrength. The author feels convinced that nothing is gained by the use of spirit of more than proof strength, since proof spirit fully extracts the fucus. Even a weaker spirit gives good results. Water is unsuitable, as it dissolves the carageen, thus producing a gelatinous liquid, which is not only difficult to work, but which produces a bulky and almost inert extract, owing to the very large amount of this mucilage which it extracts, and it is on this account that a spirituous menstruum is rendered necessary. The action of Fucus vesiculosus is generally attributed to the iodine contained in it. The author does not doubt that its effects in scrofulous affections are due to this constituent, but points out that neither iodine nor any of its salts have as yet been observed to produce such results in the treatment of morbid obesity as those ascribed to this plant. |