American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

Atropine.
Atropine is the essential alkaloid of belladonna. It is difficult to obtain
entirely free from hyoscyamine.
Description—It occurs as a white crystalline body, usually in minute
acicular crystals, or as an amphorous white powder of a bitter, acrid,
nauseous taste and odorless. Upon exposure to the air it assumes a
yellowish color. It is soluble in 130 parts of water and three parts of
alcohol, fifty parts of glycerine and quite freely in ether and chloroform.
Atropine Sulphate.
Description—This salt is perhaps more commonly used in medicine than
the unsaturated alkaloid, atropine. It is a white crystalline powder,
odorless and permanent. It is freely soluble in water and in alcohol,
nearly insoluble in ether and chloroform.
Therapy—The uses of atropine and atropine sulphate are those of
belladonna. Their concentrated form greatly increases the violence of
their action. Belladonna is preferable for constant daily prescribing.
These alkaloids are of much advantage in narcotic poisoning and as
stimulants in the recovery of patients from shock. The 1/ 100 of a grain will
produce the physiological symptoms in a healthy patient. This dose is
seldom exceeded. From 1/150 to 1/200 is usually sufficient. The 1/50 of a
grain is the maximum dose. They are best used hypodermically.
Solutions of atropine for hypodermic use should always be made fresh.
Old solutions are to be avoided. The fluid becomes infected, and the
alkaloid is partly destroyed.
Atropine is used to dilate the pupil in examination of the interior of the
eye, and it is useful in acute inflammation of that organ. It empties the
capillaries of an excess of blood, abating the inflammatory processes. It
prevents adhesions in iritis, and assists in breaking up any that may have
occurred. Two grains of atropine are dissolved in an ounce of distilled
water, or better yet, in an ounce of castor oil deprived of its ricinic acid.
From one to five drops of these solutions may be instilled into the eye.
The oleaginous solution has advantages over the aqueous solution.
Atropine is of superior advantage, used hypodermically, in certain
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 68