student has no time left for laboratory work, and can only arrange 

 his desk for the chemical work. 



The chemical work of the student is so planned that it shall in- 

 struct him in certain methods which will be of use to him in his 

 later work in clinical medicine and will enable him also to make at 

 least the necessary preliminary tests in a case of suspected poisoning. 

 A small laboratory manual drawn up by the instructor is placed in 

 his hands and its directions are modified from year to year. The 

 ground covered in the laboratory includes the methods of isolating 

 volatile poisons and the analytical methods applicable to the detec- 

 tion of small quantities of this class of poisons; the search for alkaloids 

 and glucosids by the methods of Draggendorff, Brouardel, Kippen- 

 berger, and others, some typical poisons of these classes being mixed 

 with foods and subjected by the student to processes suitable to their 

 extraction; the search for metallic poisons and non-volatile acids; a 

 study of blood-stains and the separation of blood from rust-spots, etc.; 

 a spectroscopic and simple chemical study of the various hemoglobin 

 derivatives as methemglobin, hematin, reduced hematin, hematopor- 

 phyrin, carbon monoxid hemoglobin, etc.; a study of the changes in 

 the urine induced by drugs. 



In a course of this kind a Avise selection of examples must be made 

 and assistance must be given to the student by means of class demon- 

 strations and informal talks, as ^vell as by instruction at the laboratory 

 desk. 



In the past few years our students have come to us with a better 

 preparation in chemistry, and many of them have already had a special 

 course in the detection of metallic and other poisons. 



To avoid repetition we have therefore arranged a few class dem- 

 onstrations showing the best methods of oxidizing organic matter and 

 of detecting arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury, and phosphorus, pay- 

 ing especial attention to the simpler preliminary tests which shall 

 enable the physician, if need be, to ascertain ^vith certainty whether 

 one or another of these poisons is present. The object of this chemical 

 course is, therefore, mainly to give the student a bird's-eye view of the 

 field, with a certain technic of an elementary sort and to further 

 improve his chemical knowledge, something for which the modern 

 physician finds more and more practical uses. Should the student who 

 has taken such a course ever find himself involved as a medical expert 

 in a medicolegal case he wdll not be entirely incapable of compre- 

 hending the controversial points which are agitating the chemical 

 experts in the trial. 



65 



