Origin. - A fixed oil expreesed from the seed of Croton Tiglium L., indigenous in Hindustan and some of the East Indian and Philippine islands.

Description and Properties. - A pale-yellow or brownish-yellow, somewhat viscid, and slightly fluorescent liquid, having a slight, fatty odor and a mild, oily, afterward acrid and burning taste (great caution is necessary in tasting). Croton oil should be kept in small, well-stoppered bottles, and should be handled with caution, for when applied to the skin it produces rubefaction or a pustular eruption.

When fresh, croton oil is soluble in about 60 parts of alcohol, the solubility increasing by age.

Croton oil is broken up into crotonoleic acid which resembles in its action ricin-oleic acid, but is much more powerful.

Dose. - 1/4-2 minims (0.01-0.12 Cc.) on a lump of sugar or mixed with some bland oil [1 minim (0.05 Cc), U. S. P.].

Physiological Action. - Externally and Locally. - Croton oil is a powerful irritant when applied to the skin, exciting inflammation and quickly producing vesication, which rapidly merges into pustules closely resembling those of variola, and perhaps lasting several days. In many cases permanent cicatrices mark the sites of these pustules.

If the drug be rubbed over the abdomen, it may produce purgation. The irritating action is wholly due to the free crotonoleic acid which the oil contains.

Internally. - When a drop or two of croton oil is taken into the stomach it occasions a sense of heat in the epigastrium, which is soon succeeded by griping and abdominal pain, and in from half an hour to two hours after the ingestion of the drug there are produced profuse watery stools, with considerable burning and irritation about the anus.

The drug greatly increases the vascularity of, and the secretion from, the gastro-intestinal tract, without specially influencing the biliary secretion.

Large doses produce violent gastro-enteritis, hypercatharsis, with great prostration and collapse resembling that of cholera.

In case of poisoning the stomach should be immediately evacuated, and demulcent drinks freely given. Opium and stimulants may be necessary.

Therapeutics. - Externally and Locally. - The external use of croton oil is comparatively limited.

Croton oil has been put to many uses, but the results obtained are so unsatisfactory that it is needless to enumerate them.

Internally. - The drug is used as a purgative, as a rule, only in cases of emergency, and then a single dose is usually sufficient. It is employed in such cases as intestinal obstruction from accumulated feces produced by torpor of the bowels, diseases of the nervous system, lead-poisoning, etc. In lead colic it is probably superior to all other purgatives.

Croton oil is sometimes employed for its revulsive action in apoplexy.

As a purgative it is frequently given to the insane, because, on account of the smallness of the dose, it may be easily placed on the back of the tongue, where it is quickly swallowed reflexly.

Contraindications. - The drug should never be given to pregnant women, to children, nor to patients suffering from hemorrhoids, peritonitis, gastritis, or enteritis.

Administration. - Croton oil may be given in emulsion, or mixed with some bland oil, or dropped on a piece of loaf sugar, or in pill form.

The best excipient for pills of croton oil is breadcrumb.