Lupinus. Lupinus albus. Lupin.
Lupinus. Lupinus albus L. Lupin. Lupin, Fr. Feigbohne, Wolfsbohne, Gr.—A plant belonging to the Leguminosae, and a native of Europe and Western Asia, which is sometimes cultivated in our gardens. Other species are also met with—L. hirsutus L., L. luteus L., L. polyphyllus Lindl., L. densiflorus Benth.. The last two are indigenous to the Pacific slope and the West. The bitter principle lupinin, C29H32O16, is a glucoside, and its solution in alkalies is of a dark brownish-yellow color. On boiling with dilute acids it is decomposed into lupigenin, C17H12O6, and a fermentable, dextro-rotatory glucose. The bruised seeds of white lupin, after soaking in water, are sometimes used as an external application to ulcers, etc., and internally are said to be anthelmintic, diuretic, and emmenagogue. An instance has been recorded where a decoction used as an injection in the rectum caused symptoms which suggested a poisonous character for the drug. An alkaloid, lupanine, C15H24ON2, has also been discovered in L. angustifolium. It is a pale, yellow, syrupy fluid of an intensely bitter taste and showing a green fluorescence. Two alkaloids, lupinine, C21H40O2N2, and lupinidine, C8H15O2N, have been isolated from the seeds of Lupinus luteus and L. niger, the former a crystalline powder and the latter a syrupy liquid. Steiger (J. Soc. Chem. Ind., 1886, 385) has also studied a carbohydrate analogous to dextrin, which Baeyer and Eichborn discovered in Lupinus luteus. He finds that it is not changed by yeast, that nitric acid converts it into mucic acid, and that diluted sulphuric or hydrochloric acid converts it into galactose.
According to Schwartz (W. K. R., 1906) the seeds of the Lupinus arabicus contain calcium-anhydro-oxydiamine phosphate, to which he has given the name of magolan and which is a useful remedy in diabetes mellitus. It occurs in crystals which yield a green precipitate with copper acetate. The dose of magolan is three grains (0.2 Gm.). several times daily.
