The physiological action of β‐iminazolylethylamine

8-IMINAZOLYLETHYLAMINE is the amine which is produced when carbon dioxide is split off from histidine. It was first prepared synthetically by Windaus and Vogt'. Recently Ackermann2 obtained a large yield of the base by submitting histidine to the action of putrefactive organisms. It has been shown that several of the amines thus related to amino-acids possess marked physiological activity. The activity of j8-iminazolylethylamine was discovered in the course of the investigation of ergot and its extracts by G. Barger and one of us3, who attributed this structure to a base which they obtained, and which in minute doses produced tonic contraction of the uterus. The synthetic substance, and the base produced by splitting off carbon dioxide from histidine by bacterial action or by chemical means, were found to have an identical action. Meanwhile Kutscher4 had simultaneously and independently described the isolation from ergot of a base having this action and presumably identical with that obtained by Barger and Dale. By its chemical properties this first ergot base of Kutscher was not distinguishable from 8-iminazolylethylamine; but certain apparent differences in the physiological action of the two bases, observed by Ackermann and Kutscber-5, led them to the conclusion that the ergot base, though closely related to 8-iminazolylethylamine, is not identical with it. The alleged difference in action, on the existence and cause of which our experiments throw light, was as follows: the 1 Ber.