Br. Mitchell on the Physiological Actions of Spartine and Scoparine. 181 



spinal cord. The eflfects, however, are directly opposed to those of 

 strychnine, for while the latter exalts the nervous energy of the cord, and 

 produces muscular spasm of more or less permanence, the other exhausts 

 it, and causes muscular paralysis. Both appear to act (but in ways 

 opposed) on the seat of the reflex functions ; and, if Grainger's views be 

 right, this must be on the gray matter of the spinal cord. And here I am 

 naturally brought to a practical inference. If the actions of this body 

 are so manifestly the counterpart of those of strychnine, it follows, or is 

 presumable, that in cases of poisoning by the latter substance, it should 

 prove an antidote or remedy; and so also, in like manner, in con- 

 vulsive or spasmodic diseases, with analogous symptoms, as tetanus, 

 hydrophobia, &c. Now, strange to say, I find that in 1813, Marochetti 

 recommended broom as a specific in cases of hydrophobia ; and Geiger, in 

 his Pharmaceutical Botany, tells us, that even yet the genista tinctoria is 

 employed in Germany in eases of this disease. Tobacco, too, from 

 which nicotine is prepared, enjoyed at one time the reputation of being 

 curative of this afiection ; and, in 1838, a trial of coneine was actually 

 made with such an object in the London Hospital. Of this I give a brief 

 report : — " In the case of hydrophobia, in a middle aged man, after the 

 disease was fully formed, two minims of conia, dissolved in 30 drops of 

 acetic acid, were applied eudermically to the pericardium. The effects 

 were instantaneous. The pulse fell from 64 to 46, and became more 

 regular. The vomitings and convulsions ceased ; the respiration became 

 less difficult, and the symptoms of the disease became altogether miti- 

 gated. The man expressed himself as feeling much better, and enter- 

 taining hopes of an ultimate recovery. These effects, however, were but 

 transitory, and, in about seven minutes, the symptoms began to reappear, 

 and shortly assumed their previous urgency. Three minims were 

 injected into the rectum, about a quarter of an hour after the endermic 

 application, but it produced no effect in allaying the symptoms of the 

 disease. The remedy was not repeated, and the man became rapidly 

 worse, and died ia a few hours." Convulsive movements have been 

 several times produced in rabbits by strychnine, and have almost invari- 

 ably been stopped by coniiine, but instead of jtreventing, it has appeared to 

 hasten, a fatal issue. May this not have arisen from the remedy itself 

 being too powerful an agent, too active a poison? And might we not 

 witli reason, in such a case, make trial of spartine, whose effects are 

 identical in kind, but whose power or violence is much diminished ? 

 Under this feeling I made the following experiments : — 



Obs. I. To a full grown rabbit I gave ^ grain of strychnine, which 

 produced, in twenty minutes, violent, persistent, and general spasms. 

 The head was rigidly bent backward.s, the muscles of the abdomen were 

 tense and hard, the limbs stiff and inflexible, and, as far as could be dis- 

 covered, respiration was wholly suspended, as was also the case with tlie 

 action of tlie heart. I placed three minims of pure spartine immediately 

 upon the back part of its tongue. The result was striking. The spasm 



