200 OKGANIC BASES. 



murderer, they are highly salutary in the prescriptions of the physician, 

 who employs them with great success in the treatment of severe and 

 otherwise unyielding diseases. Peruvian bark owes its efficacy to the 

 alkaloid quinine winch it contains together with cinchonine and chinidine 

 in varying proportions. Formerly, before these facts were known, there 

 was no standand by which the value of different specimens of Peru- 

 vian bark could be correctly judged. Sometimes a certain kind of bark, 

 whose dose had been fixed by experience, acquired a much greater value 

 than others whose efficacy far surpassed it. Now the value depends on 

 the amount of bases contained in the bark and not on the color, shape, 

 or other external signs. Not the smallest piece of the bark is now al- 

 lowed to be lost on gathering it, because processes are known by which 

 even the smallest quantity of quinine contained in it can be obtained. 



The same is true of different kinds of opium. Their medicinal value 

 depends on the amount of alkaloids they contain. These are morpMne^ 

 codeine^ and narcotine, three beautiful crystallizable bodies, the latter of 

 which is distin Tuished by the peculiar property of furnishing another 

 base, trimethylamine, when mixed with soda-lime and subjected to dry dis>- 

 tillation. Chemists have proved the presence of trimethylamine in the 

 pickle of herrings. It is the cause of their peculiar odor. Urine con- 

 tains it also in small quantities, hence its smell of herrings when much 

 of it is evaporated down. The belladonna and the datura strammonium 

 contain the alkaloid atropine, whose terribly poisonous properties are 

 generally known, but which plays a very important part in treating 

 diseases of the eye. Applied to the eye in a dilute state, or rubbed into 

 the skin near the eye, it powerfully dilates the pupil and greatly focili- 

 tates certain operations on that organ. From all parts of the hemlock, 

 a colorless, transparent oil of penetrating odor can be obtained, which 

 is known under the name of coniine, and is one of the most poisonous 

 alkaloids. Either this or c/c?«fiMe contained in the water-hemlock was 

 the cause of the tragical death of Socrates. In the St. Ignatius bean 

 and the nux vomica, strychnine is found along with hrucine; it forms a 

 beautiful, crystallizable alkaloid, distinguished by its extremely bitter 

 taste and by its producing tetanic spasms when injected into the blood. 



To this class of organic bases belong also those poisons which savages 

 use for steeping the points of their arrows. There are undoubtedly 

 several such poisons. It seems that the one used by the savages of In- 

 dia and Africa is essentially different from that used by the natives in 

 the northern part of South America. The former, called antia, imme- 

 diately stops the beating of the heart, while the latter, called curare, 

 first palsies the general muscular action and then stops the heart. Curare 

 is the better known of the two ; it was first brought to Europe by Sir 

 Walter Raleigh in 1595. According to Humboldt, the preparation of this 

 poison resembles our vintage feast. The savages collect poisonous vines 

 in the forest, while the women prepare an intoxicating fermented liquor, 

 of which they all partake. When all are intoxicated and lie in deep 

 sleep, the master of the art prepares the poison by extracting the juice. 



