Chemistry
Turkey berry contains a number of potentially pharmacologically active chemicals including the sapogenin steroid, chlorogenin.
Aqueous extracts of turkey berry are lethal to mice by depressing the number of erythrocytes, leukocytes and platelets in their blood (Tapia and others 1996). A related chemical, cholecalciferol, is the active ingredient in a number of commercial rodentacides.
Extracts of the plant are reported to be useful in the treatment of hyperactivity, colds and cough, pimples, skin diseases, and leprosy.
Methyl caffeate, extracted from the fruit of S. torvum shows an antidiabetic effect in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats.
Read more about this topic: Solanum Torvum
Famous quotes containing the word chemistry:
“If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)