| Alstonia constricta | |
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| Alstonia constricta foliage and flowers | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Gentianales |
| Family: | Apocynaceae |
| Genus: | Alstonia |
| Species: | A. constricta |
| Binomial name | |
| Alstonia constricta F.Muell. | |
Alstonia constricta, commonly known as quinine bush or bitterbark, is an endemic Australian endemic shrub or small tree of the family Apocynaceae.
Alstonia constricta has an erect growth form. Growing to 12 m in height. The species is capable of producing adventitious shoots or ‘suckers’ from the root system and in this manner often forms thickets. Leaves are pubescent, narrow and lanceolate, from 5–20 cm (2.0–7.9 in) in length. Flowers are white to cream, 2–4 cm (0.79–1.57 in) across. The bark has a corky texture, and develops a grooved appearance in older plants. Alstonia constricta produces a white latex, and contains several alkaloids, several of which have medicinal potential, including reserpine.
Alstonia constricta is the only subtropical member of the genus, and occurs in Eastern Australia from the Tropic of Capricorn southward to northern New South Wales. The species occurs in eucalypt and acacia woodlands, vine scrubs and gallery forests from humid coastal regions through to the semi-arid and arid inland. The field botanist Anders Bofeldt discovered an isolated population in the Shoalhaven River Gorge in southern New South Wales. [1]
Joseph Maiden, in his 1889 book The Useful Native Plants of Australia, recorded that its "yellowish-brown, often thick and deeply fissured bark, is intensely bitter, and possesses valuable febrifugal and tonic properties. It is regularly quoted in London drug lists. A decoction is sometimes sold in the colonies as 'bitters'. Mr. Christy states that it is used by some English brewers of pale ale for export, as it produces neither headaches nor other ill effects of hops. It tastes remarkably like Cinchona bark, and seems to partake somewhat of the properties of both quinine and nux vomica. This drug is undoubtedly worthy of careful experiments by medical men. (See A. scholaris.) The bark contains, according to Palm (who examined it in 1863), a neutral resinous bitter principle, called by him alsfonin, similar to cailcedrin and tulucumin, a volatile oil, smelling like camphor, an iron-greening tannin, gum, resin, fat, wax, protein substance, oxalic acid, and citric acid. Mueller and Rummel, in Wittstein's Organic Constituents of Plants, give the following account of the alkaloid : Alstonin, the alkaloid of the bark of Alstonia constricta, F.v.M., is obtained by treating the alcoholic extract with water and a little hydrochloric acid, adding to the filtered solution a small excess of ammonia, dissolving the separated flocculent precipitate in ether, evaporating the ethereal solution, and purifying the remaining alkaloid (alsfonin) by dissolving again in dilute acid and repeating the above process. It forms an orange yellow, brittle, pellucid mass, of very bitter taste, melts below 100 degrees Celsius and is carbonised at higher temperatures; dissolves easily in alcohol, ether, and dilute acids, but sparingly in water. All its solutions in the dilute state exhibit a strong blue fluorescence which is not affected by acids or alkalies. Its alcoholic solution has a slightly alkaline reaction. Alsfonin combines with acids, but does not completely neutralise them. Hydrochloric and other strong acids, also alkalies, decompose it partly on evaporation in the water-bath to a dark-coloured acid substance. The hydrochloride of alstonine gives precipitates with the chlorides of platinum and mercury, iodide of potassium, the phosphomolybdate and metatungstate of soda, bichromate of potash, picric acid, and with the alkalies and alkaline carbonates. Tannic acid does not precipitate the hydrochloride, but does the acetate and the pure base. Concentrated nitric acid dissolves alsfonin with crimson colour, yellow on warming; sulphuric acid reddish-brown, afterwards dirty green; hydrochloric acid only...". [2]
According to Maud Grieve's 1931 work, A Modern Herbal, powdered bark of Alstonia constricta was used to relieve chronic diarrhoea, dysentery, fevers, and as an anthelmintic. She also reported that although there was no evidence to show why it should be, herbalists prefer using it to quinine, and it was also used by homoeopaths. [3]
Bitterbark has been used to treat colds, and was used after World War II to treat returning soldiers who had contracted malaria. [4]
As of 2022 [update] research into various types of bush medicine is being carried out by Central Queensland University in consultation with Ghungalu elder Uncle Steve Kemp. The study will include examination of the methods used to extract and process plants such as bitterbark and gumby gumby. [4]
Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg cramps, quinine is not recommended for this purpose due to the risk of serious side effects. It can be taken by mouth or intravenously. Malaria resistance to quinine occurs in certain areas of the world. Quinine is also used as an ingredient in tonic water to impart a bitter taste.
Tannins are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.
Benedict's reagent is a chemical reagent and complex mixture of sodium carbonate, sodium citrate, and copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate. It is often used in place of Fehling's solution to detect the presence of reducing sugars. The presence of other reducing substances also gives a positive result. Such tests that use this reagent are called the Benedict's tests. A positive test with Benedict's reagent is shown by a color change from clear blue to brick-red with a precipitate.
A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol. Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%. In chemistry, a tincture is a solution that has ethanol as its solvent. In herbal medicine, alcoholic tinctures are made with various ethanol concentrations, which should be at least 20% alcohol for preservation purposes.
A glucoside is a glycoside that is chemically derived from glucose. Glucosides are common in plants, but rare in animals. Glucose is produced when a glucoside is hydrolysed by purely chemical means, or decomposed by fermentation or enzymes.
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from Artemisia annua, a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of many plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine sometimes include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.
Coniine is a poisonous chemical compound, an alkaloid present in and isolable from poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), where its presence has been a source of significant economic, medical, and historico-cultural interest; coniine is also produced by the yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia flava), and fool's parsley (Aethusa cynapium). Its ingestion and extended exposure are toxic to humans and all classes of livestock; its mechanism of poisoning involves disruption of the central nervous system, with death caused by respiratory paralysis. The biosynthesis of coniine contains as its penultimate step the non-enzymatic cyclisation of 5-oxooctylamine to γ-coniceine, a Schiff base differing from coniine only by its carbon-nitrogen double bond in the ring. This pathway results in natural coniine that is a mixture—a racemate—composed of two enantiomers, the stereoisomers (S)-(+)-coniine and (R)-(−)-coniine, depending on the direction taken by the chain that branches from the ring. Both enantiomers are toxic, with the (R)-enantiomer being the more biologically active and toxic of the two in general. Coniine holds a place in organic chemistry history as being the first of the important class of alkaloids to be synthesized, by Albert Ladenburg in 1886, and it has been synthesized in the laboratory in a number of unique ways through to modern times.
Alstonia is a widespread genus of evergreen trees and shrubs, of the family Apocynaceae. It was named by Robert Brown in 1811, after Charles Alston (1685–1760), professor of botany at Edinburgh from 1716 to 1760.
Classical qualitative inorganic analysis is a method of analytical chemistry which seeks to find the elemental composition of inorganic compounds. It is mainly focused on detecting ions in an aqueous solution, therefore materials in other forms may need to be brought to this state before using standard methods. The solution is then treated with various reagents to test for reactions characteristic of certain ions, which may cause color change, precipitation and other visible changes.
Tollens' reagent is a chemical reagent used to distinguish between aldehydes and ketones along with some alpha-hydroxy ketones which can tautomerize into aldehydes. The reagent consists of a solution of silver nitrate, ammonium hydroxide and some sodium hydroxide. It was named after its discoverer, the German chemist Bernhard Tollens. A positive test with Tollens' reagent is indicated by the precipitation of elemental silver, often producing a characteristic "silver mirror" on the inner surface of the reaction vessel.
The Fischer oxazole synthesis is a chemical synthesis of an oxazole from a cyanohydrin and an aldehyde in the presence of anhydrous hydrochloric acid. This method was discovered by Emil Fischer in 1896. The cyanohydrin itself is derived from a separate aldehyde. The reactants of the oxazole synthesis itself, the cyanohydrin of an aldehyde and the other aldehyde itself, are usually present in equimolar amounts. Both reactants usually have an aromatic group, which appear at specific positions on the resulting heterocycle.
Trigonelline is an alkaloid with chemical formula C7H7NO2. It is a zwitterion formed by the methylation of the nitrogen atom of niacin (vitamin B3). Trigonelline is a product of niacin metabolism that is excreted in the urine of mammals.
Veratridine is a steroidal alkaloid found in plants of the lily family, specifically the genera Veratrum and Schoenocaulon. Upon absorption through the skin or mucous membranes, it acts as a neurotoxin by binding to and preventing the inactivation of voltage-gated sodium ion channels in heart, nerve, and skeletal muscle cell membranes. Veratridine increases nerve excitability and intracellular Ca2+ concentrations.
Bush medicine comprises traditional medicines used by Indigenous Australians, being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous people have been using various components of native Australian flora and some fauna as medicine for thousands of years, and a minority turn to healers in their communities for medications aimed at providing physical and spiritual healing.
Alstonia scholaris, commonly called blackboard tree, scholar tree, milkwood or devil's tree in English, is an evergreen tropical tree in the Dogbane Family (Apocynaceae). It is native to southern China, tropical Asia and Australasia, where it is a common ornamental plant. It is a toxic plant, but is used traditionally for myriad diseases and complaints.
Free base is a descriptor for the neutral form of an amine commonly used in reference to illicit drugs. The amine is often an alkaloid, such as nicotine, cocaine, morphine, and ephedrine, or derivatives thereof. Freebasing is a more efficient method of self-administering alkaloids via the smoking route.
Cobalt(II) thiocyanate is an inorganic compound with the formula Co(SCN)2. The anhydrous compound is a coordination polymer with a layered structure. The trihydrate, Co(SCN)2(H2O)3, is a isothiocyanate complex used in the cobalt thiocyanate test (or Scott test) for detecting cocaine. The test has been responsible for widespread false positives and false convictions.
Cleaning agents or hard-surface cleaners are substances used to remove dirt, including dust, stains, foul odors, and clutter on surfaces. Purposes of cleaning agents include health, beauty, removing offensive odor, and avoiding the spread of dirt and contaminants to oneself and others. Some cleaning agents can kill bacteria and clean at the same time. Others, called degreasers, contain organic solvents to help dissolve oils and fats.
Hydrochloric acid, also known as muriatic acid or spirits of salt, is an aqueous solution of hydrogen chloride (HCl). It is a colorless solution with a distinctive pungent smell. It is classified as a strong acid. It is a component of the gastric acid in the digestive systems of most animal species, including humans. Hydrochloric acid is an important laboratory reagent and industrial chemical.
Dragendorff's reagent is a color reagent to detect alkaloids in a test sample or as a stain for chromatography plates. Alkaloids, if present in the solution of sample, will react with Dragendorff's reagent and produce an orange or orange-red precipitate. This reagent was invented by the German pharmacologist, Johann Georg Dragendorff (1836–1898) at the University of Dorpat.
A Modern Herbal, first published in 1931, by Mrs. M. Grieve, contains Medicinal, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation and Folk-Lore.
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