SUBSTANCES REPUTED MEDICINAL. I7!I 
7. Normal respiration and general torpidity, not unattended with 
danger to life. 
The poison given by the mouth acts with less vigour; when 
it is injected into the intestines the results are more certain. The 
animal has a longer stage of excitement, the convulsive fit is not 
sO severe, and recovery is more certain. Torpidity remains for 
some hours. 
A quarter of a drop injected under the skin of a rat causes 
excitement ; the animal starts with slight noises, may fall over a 
few times from very strong muscular irregularities; remains 
excitable for some time, then gradually becomes torpid. 
In small medical doses we may expect to find the period of 
the excitement and the torpidity to be the only marked symptoms. 
In cats and dogs the excitement is not marked, but vomiting of a 
violent kind occurs. 
Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, has some notes on the drug 
inthe V.S.W. Medical Gazette, iii, 8, May, 1873. His pituri 
was obtained from the same source as that used by Dr. Bancroft, 
but was in a damaged condition. 
In September, 1878, Mr. A. W. Gerrard experimented with 
a very small quantity (30 grains) of pituri, which had come into 
his possession. He found an alkaloid, to which he gave the pro- 
visional name of ‘‘pituria,’”’ but on account of the smallness of 
material available, he was unable to describe its properties with 
much definiteness. (See Pharm. Fourn., [3], ix., 251.) Loc. cit. 
p. 638, will be found a chatty account of pituri, taken from the 
Lancet, to which it was sent by Mr. J. G. Murray, surgeon to a 
Central Australian exploring expedition. 
Mr. A. Petit having obtained a quantity of pituri, repeated 
and supplemented Mr. Gerrard’s experiments. (See a paper in the 
Pharm. Fourn. [3], ix., 819.) He pronounces the alkaloid con- 
tained in the substance to be nicotine, and quotes some physio- 
logical experiments by Professors Sydney Ringer and Murrell as 
supporting his view. 
On 3rd November, 1880, Professor Liversidge, of the Sydney 
University, read a paper before the Royal Society of New South 
