396 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



Action on the Sexual Organs. 



The genital depression attributed to conium by the ancients, 

 modern investigators have been unable to discover. The ancients 

 believed, that not only does it repress sexual desire, but that it 

 actually caused an atrophy of the testes and mamma?, which 

 latter, of course, implies atrophy of the ovaries also. The falsity 

 of this belief was shown in several cases of chorea, occurring in 

 girls about the age of puberty, in whom menstruation came on 

 while the patients were under the ph} 7 siological effects of conia. 

 That it has no effect on the mammary secretion of cats is proved 

 by the following experiment. 



Exp. 83. A four-year-old cat was delivered of kittens on July 

 20th. On the evening of the same day she was given one drop of 

 conia by the stomach, and on the next morning another drop was 

 given, with the following result : great difficulty in moving and 

 respiring, without any apparent effect on the mammary secretion, 

 the kittens sucking freely. On the morning of the 22d, another 

 drop was given, and, until the 29th, the animal was given a drop 

 daily without any noticeable effect on the quantity or quality of 

 the milk ; the kittens continuing very healthy, but in all of them 

 some of the physiological effects of the poison being at times 

 manifest. 



In order to determine, whether or not conia, in non-poisonous 

 doses, has the power to arrest or depress natural sexual desire, an 

 experiment was made on a large torn cat, who is in the habit of 



