250 Transactions. 



tracted with, hot alcohol, and the alcoholic extract concentrated, neutralized, 

 and taken up with water to form a clear liquid in some cases, in others an 

 emulsion. 



Blood. — Since the practice of bleeding is universally recognized as 

 valuable in the treatment of stock poisoned by tutu, my attention was 

 specially drawn to this tissue. In bleeding " tutued " sheep it is a common 

 practice to slit a vein near the eye — the blood flows down on the face, and 

 much of it is said to be swallowed. This led me to try whether fresh blood 

 has any influence on the toxicity of tutin. Exp. 225 shows that it has little, 

 if any, effect. The other experiments recorded here had as their object 

 the discovery of tutin in the blood ; and the results show that shortly after 

 the administration of large doses of tutin the blood contains sod i poison 

 — -either tutin itself in traces or some other toxic body arising from it or 

 resulting from its action. The experiments in support of this are the 

 following : — 



Exp. No. 234 : Rabbit, weight 2,010 grm., received 10 mlgrm. tutin 

 intravenously. Respiration immediately became quickened ; seven minutes 

 after injection the animal began to show muscular symptoms, and at eight 

 minutes a typical convulsion broke out. Twenty minutes after the in- 

 jection, and when nearly dead, it was killed by bleeding ; the blood was 

 defibrinated, and within twenty minutes 10 c.c. of it was injected in two 

 portions into the ear-vein of a rabbit (No. 235) weighing 1,350 grm. The 

 animal became dazed and sleepy-looking ; it sat with its eyeballs rolled 

 up under the half-closed lids, and the respiration-rate was markedly increased. 

 It also licked its lips repeatedly as if salivating, but within an hour it seemed 

 to have completely recovered. These symptoms point to the presence 

 of some tutin or an allied toxic body in the blood. If all the tutin were 

 present in the blood as such the dose would have been 1 mlgrm., and the 

 animal would have shown much more decided symptoms. The residue of 

 the blood of the first rabbit was evaporated to dryness ; it then weighed 

 7-2 grm., and therefore represented about 35 c.c. of blood = one-third of 

 the total blood of the animal. The dried residue was treated with alcohol, 

 and the alcoholic extract taken up with Avater as already described. The 

 whole quantity was given by mouth to a kitten (No. 237). It developed 

 some twitching of the ears, licking of its lips, and swallowing move- 

 ments, &c, but recovered completely. The symptoms here are suggestive 

 of small amounts of tutin in the blood ; and on calculating the percentage 

 present, if the tutin were uniformly distributed throughout the body, one 

 may safely conclude that the blood had more than its due share of 

 the poison, while, as shown above, the blood did not contain all the 

 poison. 



Exp. No. 232: Rabbit, weight 1,588 grm., received hypodermically 

 1-5 c.c. of 0-5 per cent, tutin = 7-5 mlgrm. The animal had severe symp- 

 toms, and was killed half an hour after the dose was administered. The 

 brain and cord weighed 11 grm. The blood and washings of blood-vessels 

 yielded 9-8 grm. dried material ; it was calculated, therefore, that the amount 

 of blood obtained = 43 c.c. = more than half the total blood. 



Both tissues were acidified with HC1 and evaporated to dryness, then 

 both were extracted with absolute alcohol and the extract dissolved in water 

 after removing the alcohol. 



The whole of the extract of brain and cord, measuring 3 c.c, was 

 injected into the peritoneum of a rabbit weighing 673 grm., but no 

 symptoms of any kind followed. 



