A PHARMACOLOGICAL STUDY OF AN EXTRACT OF ERYTHRINA CRISTA GALLI (CEIBO)

¹ Department of Pharmacology and Biochemistry, Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

The effects of alcoholic and aqueous extracts of Erythrina crista galli (ceibo) were studied in cats anesthetized with dial.

These extracts produce a depression of the responses of effectors innervated by cholinergic nerves when these effectors are stimulated by injected acetylcholine or through their nerves. In the doses used, they do not affect the organs innervated by adrenergic nerves.

This curarizing effect is antagonized by prostigmine (fig. 2) and, at the neuromuscular junction, also by the application of a tetanus (post-tetanic decurarization, fig. 3).

Besides the curarizing effect, it is shown that in the submaxillary gland stimulated by acetylcholine small initial doses of Erythrina provoke a clear increase of the response and large doses cause a decrease (figs. 10 and 11). In some cases a moderate dose could produce both effects, first potentiating and then depressing.