Description

Organic Semen Armeniacae Amarum

( Rosaceae)

Apricot tree. A small tree **6 m. tall. Leaves oval-orbiculate, ***0 cm. Long, abruptly acuminate, base nearly cordate or rounded, twice dentate, glabrous; stipules caducous. Flowers solitary, white or pink, nearly sessible, blooming with or before the leaves; April; calyx with 5 segments, caducous; petals 5; stamens numerous; ovary at the base of the calyx tube, *-celled. Fruit a large globular drupe, pubescent, velvety, fleshy-succulent, yellow or pale red, indehiscent; June; stone oval-compressed, surfaces smooth, one edge carinate and with 2 furrows, the other dege obtuse, with **2 bitter kernels. Northwestern China. ( Syn. Armeniaca vulgaris Lam.)

The kernels of the fruit are officinal. They contain the bitter glycoside amygdalin (C*0H*7NO*1.3H2O; orthorhombic columns; m.p. **0°, when anhydrous, about **0°,once melted and solidified, ******0°; very soluble in boiling water; soluble in alcohol; insoluble in ether), and the enzyme emulsin ( white or light yellow powder; soluble in water with turbidity). Amygdalin, when pure, is almost entirely harmless, it is split up by the ferment emulsin in the presence of water, being decomposed in the body to yield hydrocyanic acid, glucose, and benzaldehyde; hydrocyanic acid ( prussic acid; HCN; colorless gas or liquid; charcteristics odor of bitter almonds; miscible with water, alcohol) is perhaps the most rapidly acting poison, producing death with asphyxial symptoms by hindering the oxidative processes of the tissues; it also interferes with most catalytic reactions and  is therefore a general protoplasmic poison; symptoms of acute poisoning are vertigo, mental dimness, headache, palpitation, then dyspnea, unconsciousness accompanined by violent convulsions, respiration ceasing; the fatal dose of dilute HCN would be about 2.5 gm. HCN has been used for its supposed antispasmodic and sedative action in spasmodic cough and asthma.

Prescribed as antitussive and sedative in bronchitis, asthma. Dose, **5 gm. incompatibles: Astragalus hoantchy, Scutellria baicalensis, Pueraria thunbergiana.