Atropine natural source

Jimson Weed is a natural source of atropine, and is sometimes deliberately... 

Atropine, USP. Atropine is the tropine ester of racemic tropic acid and is optically inactive. It possibly occurs naturally in various Solanaceae, though some claim, with justification. that whatever atropine is isolated from natural sources results from racemization of (-)-hyoscyaminc during the isolation process. Conventional methods of alkaloid... 

Naturally occurring amines derived from plant sources are called alkaloids. Alkaloids previously encountered in the text include quinine (Problem 17.14), morphine (Section 22.9), and cocaine (Problem 3.35). Three other common alkaloids are atropine, nicotine, and coniine, illustrated in Figure 25.5. 

Atropine is the optically inactive mixture of dextro- and laevo-hyoscyamine. Laevo-hyoscyamine alone occurs in nature. The hest source of hyoscyamine is a variety of henbane indigenous in Egypt, Soudan and India, known as Hyoscyamus muticus, in the various parts of which it has been shown to be present in the following proportions leaves 1.4% stems 0.6 % seeds 0.87-1.34%. Atropine is also manufactured from the root of Scopolia carniolica, in which hyoscyamine is present to the extent of 0.43-0.51% and from A ropa belladonna, the leaves of which contain, on the average, 0.4%, and the roots 0.5%, of hyoscyamine. Many other solanaceous plants of the Datura species contain these alkaloids, in varying, and smaller, amounts, often associated with hyoscine or scopolamine. 

When one considers the therapeutic impact of morphine, quinine, digitalis, ergot, atropine, cocaine, reserpine, and vincaleukoblastine, to name but a few, it is evident how great is the debt of medicine to plant-derived drugs even today. If one adds the synthetic derivatives and variants of plant-derived products, the role of natural products from plant sources has been most impressive. 

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