ATROPINE. 143 
Properties of Atropine. According to M. Brande, Atropine varies in ap- 
pearance, depending on the method by which it is obtained, crystallizing 
only when perfectly pure. It is in the form of white crystals, more soluble 
in hot than incold alcohol ; almost insoluble in water, insoluble in ethera nd 
the oils. It forms, with acids, neutral crystallizable salts. 
Action of Atropine on the Animal Economy. When M. Brande was ex- 
perimenting on the alkali, he was obliged to desist, in consequence of the 
violent head-aches, pains in the back, and giddiness, with frequent nausea, 
which the vapour of the salt occasioned. It had, indeed, so injurious an 
effect upon his health, that he has entirely abstained from further experi- 
ments, and no one has hitherto repeated them. He once tasted a small 
quantity of the sulphate of.atropine; the taste was not bitter, but merely 
saline: there soon followed, however, violent headache, shaking in the 
limbs, alternate sensations of heat and cold, oppression of the chest, diffi- 
culty of breathing, and diminished circulation of the blood. The violence 
of these symptoms ceased in halfan hour. The vapour even, of the various 
salts of atropine, produces vertigo. When exposed for a long time to the 
vapours arising from a solution of nitrate, phosphate, or sulphate of Atropine, 
the pupil of the eye becomes dilated. This occurred frequently to M.Brande; 
and when he tasted the salt of Atropine, the dilatation followed to so great 
a degree, that it continued for twelve hours, and was not influenced by the — 
different shades of light* We have not learnt that the salts of Atropine 
have been employed medicinally. M. Brande has also succeeded in ob- 
taining from the seeds of the Hyoscyamus niger and the Datura stramonium | 
two alkaline principles of a similar nature to Atropine; to these he had 
given the names of Hyosciamine and Daturine. His account of these prin- 
ciples, however, is acai but on them the active properties of the plant 
depend. 
* Schweigger’s Journal, 28.i; Report. de Buchner, xi. 71; Ure’s Dictionary of Che- 
mistry, 1823; and Formulary of several new Remedies, by J. Haden, p. 119. 
