CHAPTER X 



THE PTOMAINES AND SOLUBLE FERMENTS 



THE advancement of organic chemistry has increased 

 our knowledge of the alkaloids occurring in the 

 vegetal kingdom bodies which are of great import- 

 ance both from a therapeutical and a toxicological 

 aspect. Since the year 1872 a new source has been 

 discovered of the natural origin of alkaloids, viz., 

 from the animal kingdom, and the knowledge and 

 investigation of these bodies have proved of great 

 service in the study of both physiological and 

 pathological chemical processes. 



The ptomaines (TTT&ILCL = corpse) were first dis- 

 covered in decomposing animal tissues, as their 

 pseudonym of cadaveric alkaloids implies. Their 

 presence in these dead tissues introduced a new 

 factor in the post-mortem search for poisons in 

 suspected cases of murder. This subject was 

 brought into prominence by a murder trial in 

 Rome, in which a man was accused of poisoning 

 his master by administering delphinine. The 

 accused was acquitted because the alkaloid ob- 

 tained from the dead body differed in many of its 

 reactions from those of delphinine ; in other words, 

 the poison extracted from the body was a ptomaine 

 produced by microbes after death. In 1882, G. H. 



