STRYCHNINE AND BRUCINE 503 



wood, known in commerce as snake-wood ; grey or yellow 

 bark the poisonous, false Angustura bark ; a globular 

 berry, about the size of a small apple, containing, amid soft 

 gelatinous pulp (which birds are said to eat with impunity), 

 five round, disc-shaped, ash-grey seeds, about an inch in 

 diameter. The seeds have a central scar or hilum on one 

 surface, are covered with short satiny hairs, have an intensely 

 bitter taste, and are tough and horny. Nux-vomica con- 

 tains two poisonous alkaloids strychnine and brucine 

 each present to the amount of about one per cent. ; the 

 soluble, amorphous strychnic or igasurie acid, which is 

 allied to mallic acid ; sugar, fat, loganin, and igasurine. 



Strychnine (C 21 H 22 2 N 2 ) is prepared by splitting the nux- 

 vomica seeds, steaming and reducing them to powder, 

 which is digested with spirit and water. The spirit is 

 recovered by distillation. To the watery extract lead 

 acetate is added, which precipitates acid and colouring 

 matters. The filtered solution is treated with ammonia, 

 which precipitates the alkaloids. 



Strychnine occurs in trimetric prisms, is colourless and 

 inodorous ; it requires for solution 5760 parts of cold water 

 and 2500 parts of hot water, but its intensely bitter taste is 

 appreciable even when diluted with 30,000 parts of water. 

 It is soluble in 150 parts of spirit, and in 6 parts of chloro- 

 form, and nearly insoluble in ether. It is not coloured 

 by nitric acid, and leaves no ash when burned with free 

 access of air. It forms crystalline, colourless, intensely 

 bitter salts, of which the hydrochloride is official. 



It is readily recognised. On a white plate a crystal is 

 dissolved in pure sulphuric acid without change of colour, 

 but when the dissolved alkaloid is made to mingle with a 

 drop or two of an oxidising solution, such as that of potas- 

 sium permanganate, there is produced a characteristic violet 

 coloration. Its extreme bitterness, and the tetanic spasms 

 produced in frogs and other small animals by solutions con- 

 taining the ^^^th part of a grain are valuable corroborative 

 tests. 



BRUCINE or BRUCIA (C 23 H 26 N 2 4 .4H 2 O) is associated with 

 strychnine in the seeds. It occurs in colourless prismatic 

 crystals ; is almost as bitter as strychnine, but is more 



