Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1933. / Typescript. Vita. With this is bound: Daturic acid / by Ralph W. Clark. Reprinted from Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, vol. XXIV, no. 10 (Oct. 1935), p. [843]-847. Includes bibliographical references.

A pathway for the biosynthesis of tropic acid from tryptophan in Datura Stramonium has been proposed by Goodeve, and was supported by Hamon. The purpose of this investigation was to determine quantitatively the percentage of incorporation of tryptophan into tropic acid. This was attempted using vacuum infiltration and sterile root culture techniques with autoradiography being utilized to identify the radioactive metabolites. Tryptophan was not found to be converted to tropic acid under the experimental conditions used in this investigation. The purpose of this investigation was also to extract crude enzyme preparations which would convert certain postulated intermediate compounds into tropic acid. The conversion of a-phenyl-3-aminopropionic acid to atropic acid and the conversion of atropic acid to tropic acid was attempted. The enzyme extracts of Datura Stramonium root tissues were prepared from acetone powders, from fresh tissue, and from freeze-dried tissues. These extracts did not show any activity in vitro. It is concluded that some differences existed between the tissues used in the present investigation and those used in previous work. / Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of / Graduate

There have been two pathways postulated for the biogenesis of tropic acid in Datura stramonium. The first of these, involving the amino acid tryptophan, was proposed by Goodeve and Ramstad¹³. The second utilizes another amino acid, in this case phenylalanine, and was put forward by Leete¹⁵ and independently by Underhill and Youngken Jr.¹⁶. Since there have been these two mechanisms postulated for the biogenesis of tropic acid in this plant, one must conclude that either the two amino acids act via a common pathway or that there are in fact two separate mechanisms for tropic acid biogenesis. The purpose of this investigation was to distinguish between these two possibilities. Tryptophan-3-C¹⁴, tryptophan-(2-indolyl)-C¹⁴, indoleacetic acid-2-C¹⁴, phenylalanine-3-C¹⁴, and uniformly ring labelled phenylalanine-C¹⁴, were fed to separate, one week old, sterile, root tissue cultures of Datura stramonium. The time allowed for the metabolism of the radio-active precursor varied from three to twenty-one days. The tissue was then extracted with ethanol and this extract subjected to two-dimensional paper chromatography. Autoradiography was employed to determine the location of labelled metabolites. These metabolites were then identified by direct comparison to authentic samples chromatographed in an identical fashion. The results of this investigation show that all of the labelled precursors do give rise to labelled tropic acid. The pathway from phenylalanine appears to be the predominate mechanism for tropic acid formation in isolated Datura stramonium root tissue. The pathway from tryptophan, although apparently playing a minor role in tropic acid biosynthesis in this tissue, was shown to be a unique and independent system for the biogenesis of this aromatic acid. It is concluded therefore that there are two separate mechanisms involved in the biogenesis of tropic acid in Datura stramonium root tissue. / Medicine, Faculty of / Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (M.Sc. (Pharmacy))--Mahidol University, 1984.

Proefschrift - Groningen. / Summary in Dutch and English.

Landfills have served as the major sites for waste disposal in both developed and developing countries. Upon closure of a landfill site, the surface could be converted to a golf course, recreation park, playground, animal refuge, tennis court and industrial site. Even when closed, landfills still have the potential to contaminate the surrounding environment as a result of the migration of leachate from decomposing waste contained in the site. This study focused on assessing the impacts of a closed landfill on soils and plants at Lumberstewart closed landfill site in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Soil samples were collected at three different depths (0-30 cm, 30 - 60 cm and 60-90 cm) at the landfill and a control site. The soil samples were analysed for their texture, pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter content, cation exchange capacity and concentrations of Cd, Cu, Cr, Fe, Ni and Zn. Samples of jimson weed and pigweed growing at the closed landfill and the control site were collected from the same sites where soil samples were collected, and the concentrations of the same set of heavy metals in these weeds determined. Soil samples were digested using EPA method 3050B: Acid Digestion of Sediments, Sludge and soils whereas nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide was used for digestion of plant samples. Both plant and soil digests were analyzed for heavy metals concentrations using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). Soils from the landfill as well as the control site had a high content of sand with soil pH values which were alkaline. The electrical conductivity values of the soil samples were relatively low ranging from 0.39 to 1.67 dS/m, indicating low levels of salts in soils at the landfill. The concentrations of heavy metals at the closed landfill site were higher than the control site. Heavy metals concentrations in soils at the closed landfill followed the order Fe>Zn>Cu>Cr>Ni>Cd. Results indicated that Fe was exceptionally higher than the other metals with concentration values averaging 45690±17255 mg/kg. Cadmium on the other hand had the least concentration with values of 0.01±0.00 mg/kg. Values of Enrichment Factors of heavy metals around the soil at different depths indicated that the enrichment of heavy metals increased with depth at the landfill up to 30-60 cm after which a decrease was observed. Values for heavy metal Contamination Factor of soils around the landfill ranged from low concentration (CF<1) to very high concentration (CF>6). The Pollution Load Index (PLI) values for the soil at the Lumberstewart landfill indicated that all sites were polluted (PLI>1). Site 6 had significantly higher mean concentration of heavy metals in soils at the landfill whereas site 11 had the least. The concentrations of Cd and Ni in soils at the landfill were below permissible limits of South African National Norms and Standards (NNS) as prescribed by NEMA (2008) in South Africa whereas Cr, Cu and Zn in soils were above the NNS permissible limits. Heavy metal concentrations in soils at the landfill were above World Health (WHO) permissible limits except for Cd which was equal (0.01 mg/kg) to the permissible values of Cd in the soils at sites 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Mean concentrations of heavy metals in jimson weed and pigweed were in the order Fe>Zn>Cu>Cr>Ni>Cd. The concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe and Zn in both plants from all sites at the landfill were significantly higher than the control site. Heavy metal transfer coefficient for both plants indicated that heavy metal uptake was more species dependent than soil heavy metal concentration dependent. The results from this research indicate that though the Lumberstewart Landfill has been closed, it is still affecting the soils in the vicinity of the landfill. Plants and water around the Lumberstewart closed landfill could be at risk from heavy metal contamination. High concentrations of heavy metals observed in the soil could present a health risk to communities should they decide to use the landfill site for arable purposes. / Environmental Sciences / M. Sc. (Environmental Science)

ABSTRACT Although Cotton Mather, as the official chronicler of the 1692 Salem witch trials, is infamously associated with those events, and excerpts from his apologia on Salem, Wonders of the Invisible World, are widely anthologized today, no annotated critical edition of the entire work has appeared in print since the nineteenth century. This present edition of Wonders seeks to remedy this lacuna in modern scholarship. In Wonders, Mather applies both his views on witchcraft and on millennialism to events at Salem. This edition to Mather's Wonders presents this seventeenth-century text beside an integrated theory of the initial causes of the Salem witch panic. The juxtaposition of the probable natural causes of Salem's bewitchment with Mather's implausible explanations exposes the disingenuousness of his writing about Salem. My theory of what happened at Salem includes the probability that a group of conspirators led by the Rev. Samuel Parris deliberately orchestrated the "witchcraft" and that a plant, the thorn apple, used in Algonquian initiation rites, caused the initial symptoms of bewitchment (39-189). Furthermore, key spectral evidence used at the Salem witch trials and recorded by Mather in Wonders appears to have been generated by intense nightmares, commonly thought at the time to be witch visitations, resulting from what is today termed sleep paralysis (215-310). This dissertation provides a detailed look at some of the testimony given in the Salem court records and in Wonders of the Invisible World as it relates to the interpretation in folklore of the phenomenology of nightmares associated with sleep paralysis. The third chapter of this dissertation focuses extensively on Mather's text as a disingenuous response to the Salem witch trials (320-456). The final section of chapter three posits a "Scythian" or Eurasian connection between Swedish and Salem witchcraft. Similarities in shamanic practices among respective indigenous populations of Lapland, Eurasia, Asia, and New England, caused the devil's involvement in both the visible and invisible worlds to appear more than theoretical to writers like Jose Acosta, Johannes Scheffer, Nicholas Fuller, Joseph Mede, Anthony Horneck, and Cotton Mather, inducing Mather to include a lengthy abstract of the Swedish account in Wonders (404-449).

ABSTRACT Although Cotton Mather, as the official chronicler of the 1692 Salem witch trials, is infamously associated with those events, and excerpts from his apologia on Salem, Wonders of the Invisible World, are widely anthologized today, no annotated critical edition of the entire work has appeared in print since the nineteenth century. This present edition of Wonders seeks to remedy this lacuna in modern scholarship. In Wonders, Mather applies both his views on witchcraft and on millennialism to events at Salem. This edition to Mather's Wonders presents this seventeenth-century text beside an integrated theory of the initial causes of the Salem witch panic. The juxtaposition of the probable natural causes of Salem's bewitchment with Mather's implausible explanations exposes the disingenuousness of his writing about Salem. My theory of what happened at Salem includes the probability that a group of conspirators led by the Rev. Samuel Parris deliberately orchestrated the "witchcraft" and that a plant, the thorn apple, used in Algonquian initiation rites, caused the initial symptoms of bewitchment (39-189). Furthermore, key spectral evidence used at the Salem witch trials and recorded by Mather in Wonders appears to have been generated by intense nightmares, commonly thought at the time to be witch visitations, resulting from what is today termed sleep paralysis (215-310). This dissertation provides a detailed look at some of the testimony given in the Salem court records and in Wonders of the Invisible World as it relates to the interpretation in folklore of the phenomenology of nightmares associated with sleep paralysis. The third chapter of this dissertation focuses extensively on Mather's text as a disingenuous response to the Salem witch trials (320-456). The final section of chapter three posits a "Scythian" or Eurasian connection between Swedish and Salem witchcraft. Similarities in shamanic practices among respective indigenous populations of Lapland, Eurasia, Asia, and New England, caused the devil's involvement in both the visible and invisible worlds to appear more than theoretical to writers like Jose Acosta, Johannes Scheffer, Nicholas Fuller, Joseph Mede, Anthony Horneck, and Cotton Mather, inducing Mather to include a lengthy abstract of the Swedish account in Wonders (404-449).