On the Action of Piperidine and Some of Its Compounds

Ix the course of a research undertaken for another purpose I had occasion to compare the actions of several compounds of piperidine, and, as my results differ somewhat from those of other workers in this field, I have thought it wcll to publish them now, as I see no prospect oi prosecuting the subject further. The substances examined were piperidine~ a-methylpiperidine, a-ethylpiperidine~ and coniine, which Itofmann and Ladenburg have shown to be a-propylpiperidine. Much of my work was done in the pharmacological laboratory of Strassburg University, the rest in that of the University of Michigan. But little work has been done, so far as I can learn, on the action of any of these bases except coniine. Buchheim* observes that the piperidine salts act on the organism in the same way as ammonia salts, while Neumann t found that he could take sixteen grains within three and a half hours without any appreciable result. Kroneeker~: tbund a certain similarity between the actions of coniine and piperidine, but ascribed the action of the former to the motornerve ends~ that of the latter to the sensory terminal organs. According to Fliess, # the reflex irritability of i~ogs is reduced or removed entirely by the injection of one milligramme of piperidine. This, he ass3rts, is due to a paralyzing action on the sensory terminal organs. He found also the heart and respiration in frogs slowed by the same quantity. His research loses somewhat in value by the fact that he used the pure base, which is a strongly alkaline irritant,