MEDICAMENTS AND LIFE. 219 



tact with the alkalies of the blood ; it produces chloroform 

 in it, but so very slowly that the sleep induced may last 

 for some hours. This sleep, less deep arid more quiet than 

 that obtained by chloroform, has the additional advantage 

 that it may be prolonged without any inconvenience by 

 new doses of the anaesthetic compound. The success of 

 chloral has been rapid. From 1832 to 1868, a few kilo- 

 grammes of it had been prepared for the demands of sci- 

 ence ; at present the Berlin manufactories, of themselves, 

 furnish to commerce a hundred kilogrammes daily. This 

 popularity is well founded, and will last, and the more so 

 because chloral is not merely the same thing for medicine 

 that chloroform is for surgery. It singularly lessens the 

 excito-motor power of the spinal marrow, and may thus 

 claim to be of remarkable utility in the treatment of several 

 complaints ; but is especially applied every day in calming 

 violent and stubborn pain, like that of inflammatory rheu- 

 matisms. 



The poppy contains several alkaloids which differ in 

 their effects respectively. Various plants present the like 

 complexity as regards therapeutics; others, on the con- 

 trary, like hemlock and belladonna, contain only a single 

 alkaloid. Cicutine, the extract of hemlock, and atropine, 

 obtained from belladonna, have very lately been the sub- 

 ject of interesting examinations. Martin, Damouret, and 

 Pel vet, who have studied hemlock, have confirmed by ex- 

 periment the precision of those historic details which have 

 come down to us as to the symptoms experienced by Soc- 

 rates, after he had swallowed the deadly draught. 1 Atro- 

 pine has opened a new path in the treatment of disorders 

 of the eye, thanks to the singular property it has of dilat- 



1 " When they brought him the poison, Socrates asked what he had to 

 do. ' Nothing,' answered the jailer, ' but to walk about after swallow- 

 ing it, till you feel a heaviness in the legs.' He drank, and walked about, 

 and, as soon as he felt his legs weaken, he lay down on his back. At the 



