73 
which is possessed by few chemists at the present day. The 
preparation of liquids and substances containing small quan- 
tities of the poisonous agents to which we have alluded is 
not to be attained by a rude handling of the microscope, 
but can only be acquired by long training in the art of 
observation by its aid. It is, in fact, one of the things 
to be deplored at the present day, that almost any person 
who possesses a microscope thinks that by putting their 
eyes at the one end of a microscope they are capable of 
making accurate observations on anything they put at the 
other end. The fact is, to detect vegetable alkalies and 
alkaloids under a microscope requires a special training. 
When this training has been accomplished, such alkaloids 
as moyrphine—the active principle of opium, strychnia— 
the alkali of nux vomica, and atropine, and daturia, the 
active principles of deadly nightshade and stramonium, may be 
easily detected. The following illustrations from Dr. Taylor’s 
work show the forms of these alkaloids under low power. 
Fic. 10. MTG. eb: 
Crystals of strychnia, 124 dia- 
p- 293. meters, p. 328. 
Pres 19. 
Crystals of strychnia obtained by adding ammonia to the sulphate, 
magnified 124 diameters, p. 338. 
