CHAP. X.] PTOMAINES NOT NORMAL INTESTINAL PRODUCTS. 435 



The kresols admit also of being identified by fusion with caustic 

 potash 1 ; orthbkresol furnishes . under these circumstances ortho- 

 oxybenzoic (salicylic) acid, whilst pure kresol yields para-oxybenzoic 

 acid. 



Behaviour in The phenol and parakresol of the alimentary canal 

 the economy. are conver ted in the economy into ethereal sulphates, 

 viz. phenol is converted into phenol-sulphuric acid, and parakresol 

 into kresol-sulphuric acid, which are excreted as potassium salts in 

 the urine, 



It is probable that these conjugate acids take their origin in the 

 liver. The amount in which they are present in the urine appears to 

 afford an indication of the intensity of the processes of decomposition 

 due to bacterial action, which occur in the alimentary canal' 2 , 3 . 



NON-OCCURRENCE OF PTOMAINES* AS PRODUCTS OF NORMAL 

 INTESTINAL DECOMPOSITION. 



We have already alluded to the fact that the processes of the 

 small intestine which are due to the bacterial decomposition of 

 proteids differ materially from those of ordinary putrefaction, and no 

 more striking proof of this assertion can be advanced than the fact 

 that neither Brieger 5 nor Baumann and Udransky 6 were, under 

 normal circumstances, able to find any of the so-called ptomaines in 

 the intestinal contents, even when the intestines had not been 

 opened for a day after death. That the intestinal contents contain, 

 however, bacteria which are capable of producing ptomaines has been 

 proved conclusively by the production of these bases in gelatin 

 cultures of the intestinal bacteria. 



We must therefore conclude that the peculiarity of the environ- 

 ment must be the cause which leads to a result so essential to the 



Zeitsch. f. phys. Chemie, Vol. in. p. 151, to a paper by Engelhardt and Latschinoff 

 in Jahresb. d. ges. Chem. 1869, p. 447, and to Hoppe-Seyler's Handbuch, 6th ed. (1893), 

 p. 158. 



1 Baumann und Brieger, op. cit. p. 150. 

 169. 



- Refer to pages 168 and 



3 On the subject of the ethereal sulphates the reader may refer to the following 

 papers : E. Baumann, Pfliiger's Archiv, Vol. xm. (1876), p. 297; E. Baumann, ' Ueber 

 die Aetherschwefelsauren der Phenole,' Zeitsch. f. phys. Chem., Vol. 2, (1878 9), 

 p. 335; Arthur Christian! and E. Baumann, 'Ueber den Ort der Bildung der Phenol- 

 schwefelsaure im Thierkorper,' Zeitsch. f. phys. Chem., Vol. 2, (1878), p. 350; 

 E. Baumann, 'Die aromatischen Verbindungen im Harn und die Darmfaulniss,' 

 Zeitsch. f. phys. Chem., Vol. x. (1886), p. 123. 



4 By the term ptomaines (from wrufjia, a corpse, carcase) are designated nitrogenous 

 bodies, for the most part having basic characters (of which many are intensely poison- 

 ous), which are produced as a result of the bacterial decomposition of dead bodies, 

 and otherwise when proteids putrefy. These bodies will be treated of at length in 

 another volume of this work, and are only incidentally referred to here. 



5 Brieger, Deutsche med. Wochensch. 1887, p. 469. 



6 Baumann und Udransky, 'Ueber das Vorkommen von Diaminen, sogenannten 

 Ptomainen bei Cystinurie,' Zeitsch. f. physiol. Chem., Vol. xin. (1889), p. 586. 



282 



