DELPHINE. : 151 
ing the syrup of violets green, and restores the blue of turnsol paper, when 
reddened by acid. Delphine forms, with nitric, oxalic, acetic, hydrochloric, 
and sulphuric acids, very soluble neutral salts, the taste of which is extremely 
acrid and bitter. Alkalies precipitate it in the form of a white jelly. Del- 
phine exists'in the seeds of the Stavesacre, in combination with malic acid, 
and in company with the following principles:—1, a brown bitter matter, 
precipitable by acetate of lead; 2, volatile oil ; 3, fixed oil; 4, albumen; 5, 
animalized matter; 6, mucus; 7, saccharine mucus; 8, yellow bitter prin- 
ciple, not precipitable by the acetate of lead; 9, mineral salts.—Annales de 
Chimie, xii. p. 358. 
Action of Delphine on Animals. Orfila has recently made some experi- 
ments with this substance. In doses of six grains, (gr. 4,92 troy) it :proves 
fatal to dogs. Its deleterious effects are more speedily induced when it is 
dissolved in weak acetic acid ; the animal, we are told, in this case, dies in 
’ the course of from forty to fifty minutes. It appears to exert its action prin- 
cipally on the nervous system. It likewise produces local irritation, giving 
rise to inflammation, when death has not immediately followed ; inflamma- 
tion, however, does not appear to be a necessary consequence of its noxious 
action on the stomach.* 
_ Delphine has not been employed medicinally. 
* Nonveau Journal de Médecine, x. 38. 
SOLANINE. 
THIS substance has been very recently discovered by M. Desfosses, an 
apothecary at Besangon, in two species of the genus Solanum,—viz. Solanum 
nigrum, (nightshade) and in the Solanum Dulcamera, (bitter-sweet). It has 
been found to exist in both these plants; in the latter, it is evidently con- 
tained in the leaves, but the leaves of the former afford no traces of it. It is 
found most abundantly in the berries of the nightshade, where it exists in 
the state of a malate. 
