400 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



completely on heating and reappearing on cooling, it gave 

 no precipitates with mercuric chloride, cupric sulphate, 

 ferric chloride, and potassium ferrocyanide and acetic acid. 

 These reactions indicate the presence of an alkaloid and the 

 absence of any proteid body. The solid residue gave an 

 orange-brown colour with sulphuric acid, an inky-brown 

 colour with nitric acid, a reddish colour with sulphuric and 

 nitric acids, a brown becoming purplish with sulphuric acid 

 and a trace of bromine, and a greenish colour with hydro- 

 chloric acid on warming. These reactions are not unlike 

 those yielded by digitalin. 



The first observation on the chemical nature of the 

 venom of the salamander seems to have been made by 

 Gratiolet and Cloez in 1851 (8). They describe the venom 

 as being a whitish milky fluid possessing a strong penetrat- 

 ing and disagreeable odour, acid in reaction, coagulating 

 quickly on exposure to the air and instantly on the addition 

 of alcohol : in this it differs from the venom of the toad. A 

 little later Vulpian gave a similar account of it (9). Zalesky 

 in 1866 (10) made a very complete examination of this 

 venom and succeeded in extracting an alkaloidal body. 

 The venom was diluted with water, heated, filtered to 

 separate a coagulum, and the filtrate precipitated by 

 phosphomolybdic acid. The precipitate was dissolved in 

 baryta water, the barium precipitated by a current of 

 carbon dioxide gas and filtered off, and the filtrate con- 

 centrated over a water-bath in a current of hydrogen. 

 Long needle-shaped crystals were obtained which on 

 complete drying formed an amorphous mass soluble in 

 water and giving an alkaline solution which was precipi- 

 tated by phosphomolybdic acid and by platinic chloride. 

 The composition of this alkaloid is expressed by the formula 

 C34 Hgo N, O5 and its hydrochlorate by C^^ Hgo N^ O5, 2HCI. 

 Zalesky named it Samandarine (from the Persian Samandar, 

 whence Salamander), but subsequent writers have in- 

 variably termed it Salamandrine. It will be evident from 

 the foregoing that the active principles of the venoms 

 under consideration are totally different substances from 

 those of snake venom, the former being alkaloidal while 



