A bitter glucoside or chemical compound extracted from milkweed or Asclepias plants, possessing medicinal properties.
From 'Asclepias' plus the chemical suffix '-in.' Similar to 'asclepidin,' this term represents 19th and early 20th-century phytochemistry as scientists isolated and named active compounds from medicinal plants.
Scientists were so excited finding mysterious compounds in medicinal plants that they'd extract something, name it after the plant, add '-in,' and hope it was actually the active ingredient—sometimes they were right, often they were just naming plant goo!
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