276 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



nizablc where there is not oxygen in the air to bathe the olfactory mem- 

 branes. Correspondence of M. Nii:kk-s, JSiUiman's Journal, November, 1850. 



OX TUB DETECTION OF STRYCHNIA. 



It has long been a general opinion that strychnine was evanescent, and 

 difficult, if not impossible, to detect after death; and hence this poison has 

 been chosen for the perpetration of the most odious of crimes. Since the 

 celebrated trial of Palmer for the murder of Cook, chemists have directed 

 their researches to the means of detecting this poison in animal tissues, even 

 in the most minute quantities. Their success has been most complete. 

 Messrs. Rogers and Girdwood have obtained strychnine from bony tissue 

 long after the death and putrefaction of the victim who had been poisoned 

 by repeated small doses of this drug. A writer in the London Medical 

 Review, who has employed strychnine for more than twenty years in the 

 extermination of vermin, after describing its effects on various animals, 

 mentions the following important fact: "I once knew a greyhound bitch 

 poisoned in consequence of having picked up the leg-bone of a hare, com- 

 pletely bare of flesh, it having been eaten off by hoddie. crows for whom it 

 had been originally laid three months previously, poisoned with strychnine, 

 and which had destroyed hundreds of them." From this we perceive in 

 how remarkable a manner this, among other vegetable poisons, penetrates 

 every part of the body, and remains ready for reproduction by the chemist 

 with such a degree of certainty that the most inexperienced experimental- 

 ist can bring forward unfailing proofs of its existence. Thus, in this as in 

 other cases, punishment follows inevitably upon guilt, and the skill to 

 detect crime keeps full pace with the iniquity which imagines it. Xext in 

 importance to the prevention of crime, the discovery of an antidote engages 

 our attention; and on this point also marked progress has been made. In 

 November 18o6, the Rev. Professor Haughton called the attention of the 

 Royal Irish Academy to his experiments on the poisoning of frogs by nico- 

 tine and strychnia, and the mutual counteraction of these poisons, which he 

 believed to be important, as the action of the antidote depended on its phy- 

 siological and not on its chemical properties. Nicotine has been more than 

 once used with success to counteract strychnine. We shall instance the case 

 of a Mr. Johnson, of St. Louis, who took six grains of this drug, with the 

 intention of committing suicide, but immediately afterwards, repenting of 

 his act, he procured an emetic, which acted freely, but did not prevent vio- 

 lent symptoms of poisoning setting in. A Dr. Byrne was therefore called in, 

 who, acting on Mr. Haughton's suggestion, made an infusion of tobacco, 

 and administered it in table-spoonful doses at intervals of five minutes, 

 until a favorable change was perceived. An hour and a quarter elapsed 

 from the time of the poison being taken until the antidote was administered, 

 but this delay in its action is accounted for by the emetic so promptly taken. 

 The spasms disappeared after twelve hours, and in the course of a few days 

 the patient was recovered. It is possible that other sedative poisons may act 

 as antidotes to strychnia also, in evidence of which we may mention that, 

 more than thirty years ago, Dr. Bcwley wishing to kill a mangy cur, and 

 having read in Ma:rcndie's " Report on Strychnia " that the sixteenth of a 

 grain will kill the largest dog, determined to make sure of this very little 

 animal by giving it about half a grain. But either Magendie's statement 

 was incorrect, or the drug- was adulterated; for at the end of ten minutes, the 



