THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF THE PRINCIPLES ISOLATED FROM THE SECRETION OF THE EURO- PEAN GREEN TOAD (BUFO VIRIDIS VIRIDIS)

In the course of our investigation of the “parotid ” secretion of the common European toad, Bufo bufo bufo (1), it happened that one of the shipments of toads we received from Hamburg, Ger-many, was contaminated with another species, the green toad of Europe, Bufo viridis viridis, which was identified by Dr. Karl P. Schmidt of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. Having succeeded in securing more animals of this particular species from Hamburg, we were able to carry out the present study. We obtained altogether 20.22 grams of the dried secre-tion from 755 toads by the expression of their parotid glands, and succeeded in isolating from the secretion the following principles: (a) cholesterol and ergosterol, (b) virido-bufagin, (c) virido-bufo-toxin, and (d) and (e) virido-bufotenines A and B, respectively. These principles can all be extracted by ethyl alcohol. From the resinous residue left by evaporating the alcoholic extract, virido-bufotenine may be obtained as a flavianate by treating with water, ifitering, and adding a sufficient quantity of flavianic acid. We observed a curious phenomenon, however, for the virido-bufotenine flavianate isolated from our 1930 shipment had a high melting point and a good pressor action, but that from the 1931 shipment had a lower melting point and very little pressor action. This makes us believe that the two substances are not identical, and we therefore adopt the provisional names virido-bufotenines A and B. As far as we could determine, there was no difference in the other constituents of the two lots of secretion. I