70 The Poison Strychnine. [Feb., 



principally from the Strychnos nux vomica. The tree from which it 

 is obtained is of moderate size, and grows in several parts of the 

 East Indies and the Island of Ceylon. Its fruits are larize orange- 

 colored berries, the pulp of which is the favorite of many birds. 

 The seeds contain the deadly poison. They are flat and round, about 

 an inch in diameter, and gray in color. These seeds were used as a 

 medicine, and as a poison by the Hindoos, long before they were 

 known in Europe. Many of the natives of Hindostan often use it 

 as people use opium. They commence with taking the eighth of a 

 nut a day, and gradually increase their allowance to an entire nut, 

 which would be about twenty grains. If they eat directly before or 

 after food, no unpleasant effects are produced, but if they neglect 

 this precaution, spasms are the result. 



The bark of the tree is also poisonous, and from its resemblance to 

 Angustura or Cusparia bark, a tonic medicine imported from South 

 America, caused a great deal of alarm and excitement in Germany, 

 in the early part of this century, by being mixed with that bark. 

 No sure antidote has yet been discovered for this poison, but some 

 chemists have attained to great skill in detecting it, when administer- 

 ed as a poison. The following is Dr. Thompson's method of detect- 

 ing the one thousandth part of a grain : 



Having placed a drop of strong sulphuric acid on a piece of glass, 

 add to it a small quantity of the suspected substance, and stir the 

 whole together, so as to favor solution, then sprinkle over the mix- 

 ture a little powdered bichromate of potash, and gently move a glass 

 rod through the fluid. If strychnia be present, a violet color of 

 cansiderable beauty will be almost immediately produced, which after 

 a few minutes will fade into redish yellow, but may be renewed by 

 the addition of more bichromate, so long as strychnia remains un- 

 destroyed in the mixture. In this way the thousandth part of a 

 grain of that alkaloid may be made to yield a very decisive indica- 

 tion. The points to be noticed are, that sulphuric acid alone, pro- 

 duces no apparent efi"ect, and that the action begins at once round 

 each particle of the bichromate, so that if the glass be held in a ver- 

 tical position, streams of a colored fluid may be seen to flow from 

 each particle, and if at this time the whole be slowly stirred, the en- 

 tire bulk of the fluid will speedily assume the same characteristic of 

 tint. 



