Duboisia myoporoides: The Medical Career of a Native Australian Plant

Abstract

Alkaloids derived from solanaceous plants were the subject of intense investigations by European chemists, pharmacologists and clinicians in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some surprise was expressed when it was discovered in the 1870s that an Australian bush, Duboisia myoporoides, contained an atropine-like alkaloid, 'duboisine'. A complicated and colourful history followed. Duboisine was adopted in Australia, Europe and the United States as an alternative to atropine as an ophthalmologic agent; shortly afterwards, it was also esteemed as a potent sedative in the management of psychiatric patients, and as an alternative to other solanaceous alkaloids in the treatment of parkinsonism. The Second World War led to renewed interest in Duboisia species as sources of scopolamine, required for surgical anaesthesia and to manage sea-sickness, a major problem in the naval part of the war. As a consequence of the efforts of the CSIR and of Wilfrid Russell Grimwade (1879-1955), this led to the establishment of plantations in Queensland that today still supply the bulk of the world's raw scopolamine. Following the War, however, government support for commercial alkaloid extraction waned, and it was the interest of the German firm Boehringer Ingelheim and its investment in the industry that rescued the Duboisia industry in the mid-1950s, and that continues to maintain it at a relatively low but stable level today.

'It is to be regretted that scientific men in this colony have paid so little attention to the subject of Medicinal Botany. Surrounded, as we are, by shrubs and plants possessing medicinal properties, there is a wide field for investigation; and, no doubt, it will be found in time to come, that we have been sending to distant countries for expensive medicines, whilst remedies equally efficacious might be provided close at hand in all their native freshness.'

William Woolls, A Contribution to the Flora of Australia (1867), p. 94.