182 • APPENDIX* 



from pipes, wlulo collkline was the prominent base in cigar -smote; 

 Volil and Eulenberg conclude tliat the nicotine of tobacco is com- 

 pletely decomposed during the process of smoking, and that the intense 

 action of tobacco-smoke on the nerTons system is due to the presence^ 

 of bases of the pyridine sei'ics. There is no doubt that some 

 obscx'vers have mistaken these bases- for nicotine ,- but Melsen's- 

 expeiuments {BingL Polyt. Jour^^ xlvii.5 2r2) appear to- be' conclusive" 

 as to. the presence of nicotine, which that chemist isolated in a 

 condition fit for analysis^ and to the amount of about 33 gi^ammes for 

 4^ kilogrammes of tobacco smoked^ (jr about one-seventh of the* 

 quantity originally present. {Allen's Coyn. Organ. Anal,, iii., pt. 2.) 



A. G-antier has since observed that the voLatile liquid products 



pipe 



of basia 



coiiipoimcTs. Tiiey contain a large proportion of nicotine, a liigher 



H 



and a base G^H'NO, wliicli seems to be a bydrate of picoline. Other 

 less volatile bases, including hydropyridines, are also formed. Thes» 

 alkaloids result from the decomposition, at a comparatively low 

 temperature, of the carbopyridic and carbohydi-opyridic or analogous 

 acids present in tobacco. ( /. Chem. Soc, April, 1893.) 



The alkaloidal contents of the Seeds and 



Tincture of Datura Stramonium. 



The principal constituents of stramonium seeds, according to Flue- 

 kiger and Hanbury's rharmacofjrapJih (p. 461), are an alkaloid, 

 existino^ in combination Avith malic acid, and a fixed oil, of which the 

 seeds are said to contain 25 per cent. The alkaloidal constituent 

 was first isolated by Geiger and Hesse in 1833, and in 1850 was 

 submitted to examination by Von Planta, who came to the conclusiou 

 that it was identical with atropine. This statement was subsequent- 

 ly confirmed by E. Schmidt (^Ber. dor Deutsch. Chem. Ges,^ xiii,, 

 370), who, however, afterwards modified his views, and concluded 

 that daturine was really a mixture, in varying proportions, of atropine 

 and hyoscyamine {Archii\ der Phannacie, xxii,, 329), 



Ladenburg also showed {Berichte Chm. Ges.y xiii., 900) that 

 stramonium contains two alkaloids, wdiich he designated heavy and 

 light daturine, the former consisting of atropine and hyoscyamine, 

 and the latter of hyoscyamine only. 



