290 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



more to one of the three. Next morning at four o'clock they were all alive, 

 and had eaten food (bread and milk) in the night, but at seven or a few 

 minutes after they were all dead. The longest- liver was one of the rats that 

 had had only a quarter of a grain. In about three hours afterwards he 

 applied the usual test, but could not detect the least indication of strychnine 

 in the precipitate. There was, moreover, a total absence of bitterness in all 

 the liquor. He tried every part of the bodies of the rats with the like results. 

 What, then, became of the strychnine? Had it been decomposed in the 

 organism, and its nature changed, as Baron Liebig intimated ? As to the 

 non-detection of strychnine, he thought it not improbable that the strychnine 

 might have become imbibed into the albumen or other solid matter, and so 

 abstracted from the fluid, forming by coagulation (say, for instance, in the 

 blood) a more or less insoluble albuminate. This idea had occurred to him 

 from noticing the coagulation of the glairy white of egg with strychnine, and 

 the fact of his not recovering the full quantity of the alkaloid whenever he 

 had introduced it. At any rate, it merited consideration. In his second expe- 

 riment he administered three-quarters of a grain of strychnia to a wild rat, 

 but the animal evinced little of the effects of the poison, and it was purposely 

 killed after five days. 



His third experiment was with two grains of strychnia, administered as a 

 pill wrapped up in blotting-paper to a full sized terrier dog. It was 

 apparently quite well for five hours, when the operator went to bed, but was 

 found dead next morning, but lying apparently in the most natural position 

 for a dog asleep. When taken up blood flowed freely from its mouth. " On 

 opening the animal, said Mr. Horsley, "I found the right ventricle of 

 the heart empty of blood, whilst the left was full, some of the blood being 

 liquid and some clotted. The stomach was carefully secured at both its 

 orifices, and detached. On making an incision, I was surprised at not seeing 

 the paper in which I had wrapped the pill, naturally expecting it would have 

 been reduced to a pulp by the fluid of the stomach. I therefore sought for 

 it, and lo ! here it is, in precisely the same condition as when introduced into 

 the gullet of the dog, and containing nearly all the strychnine. I have been 

 afraid to disturb it until I had exhibited it to you, and now I will weigh the 

 contents, and ascertain how much has been absorbed or dissolved. The 

 experiment is important as showing the small quantity of strychnia necessary 

 to destroy life ; and, had I not been thus particular to search for the paper 

 envelope, it might, possibly, have led to a fallacy, as I must have used an 

 acid, and that would have dissolved out the strychnia, and the inference 

 would have been that it was obtained from the contents of the stomach, 

 whereas it had never been diffused. In this case, also, none of the absorbed 

 strychnia was detectable in the blood or any part of the animal, although 

 the greatest care was observed in making the experiments." The lecturer, who 

 was listened to throughout with great attention, added that he had made further 

 experiments, which he thought proved that it was highly probable a more or 

 less insoluble compound of organic or animal matter with strychnia is found. 



Dr. Marshall Hall, of England, has published the following new and 

 apparently conclusive test for this subtile poison : 



