Word: colchicum
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Colchicine (from the autumn crocus, Colchicum autumnale) has long been prescribed in the treatment of gout. It attracted the attention of cancer researchers because it is poisonous to living cells, impairs their power to divide. Most cancer workers were disappointed with colchicine and soon dropped it. But Dr. Hans Lettré of the University of Heidelberg persisted. He extracted N-methyl-colchicamid, a substance which proved to be ten times as powerful as colchicine itself in preventing the riotous multiplication of cells (a characteristic of cancer growth...
Long used as a remedy for gout, colchicine is a slightly poisonous alkaloid compound which occurs in the seeds of the meadow saffron or autumn crocus, Colchicum autumnale. Two years ago Dr. Albert Francis Blakeslee, famed geneticist of the Carnegie Institution's station on Long Is land, announced the discovery of remark able effects produced on plants by colchicine (TIME, Nov. 8, 1937). The drug causes a doubling of the chromosomes (heredity carriers) in the germ cells of vegetables and flowers, producing sharp changes which breed true. It increased the growth rates of tobacco, phlox, onions, pumpkins, cosmos, radishes...
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