PTOMAINES AND LEUC0MA1NES. 59 
The importance of the animal alkaloids was first brought into prominence 
in courts of law ; the defence urged in certain notorious trials for murder, was 
that the alkaloid alleged to have been administered to the victim, or found in 
his stomach, really arose as the result of putrefactive changes occurring after 
death. It has, moreover, been demonstrated that alkaloids existing in 
different forms of putrefying food, produce poisonous symptoms. Sausages 
made with bad meat, certain forms of stale milk and cheese, 1 mussels and 
other dull fish, 2 at certain seasons of the year, produce serious symptoms 
in those who partake of them. 
It has further been supposed that, in many cases of disease, the poison 
formed by bacteria in the body, and which produces the symptoms of the 
disease, is of an alkaloidal nature. The probability that cholera is caused by 
an alkaloid was first pointed out by Lauder Brunton, 3 from the similarity of 
the symptoms to those produced by muscarine poisoning. Two alkaloids at 
least have, in fact, been discovered in cholera, and in cultures of Koch's 
comma bacillus, and have been named cadaverine and putrescine, but they 
cannot be the actual poisons in cholera, because they are not markedly 
toxic. The same two alkaloids are found in the urine and faeces in 
totally different pathological conditions, namely, cystinuria, 4 and pernicious 
anaemia. 5 
Alkaloids in animal tissues were first described by Dupre and Bence 
Jones; the substance they separated they called "animal quinoidine"; 
about the same time, Marquardt 7 obtained an alkaloid from a corpse, and 
named it "septicine." Schmidt 8 and Panum '•' obtained a substance they 
named sepsine from septic fluids, and they considered that it was the cause of 
septicaemia. Later, prominent workers at the subject have been, Selmi, 10 
Gautier, 11 and Brieger; 12 to Brieger we owe the best methods of obtaining 
these substances in a state of purity. Brieger separated some alkaloids with 
such powerfully toxic properties, that he named them toxins ; these include 
typhotoxine (from cases of typhoid fever), and tetanine 13 (from cases of 
tetanus). 
All poisons produced by bacteria are, however, not necessarily ptomaines. 
In fact, many of the toxins and antitoxins have been shown to owe their 
power, at one time ascribed to ptomaines, to the tox-albumoses or poisonous 
proteids (see "Proteids as Poisons," p. 55). 
A few details concerning the principal animal alkaloids may be added. 
Parvoline (C 9 H 13 N).— This was first separated from the putrid flesh of the 
mackerel and horse. It is an oily base, but its chloroaurate and chloro- 
platinate are crystalline (Gautier). 14 
Hydrocollidine (C 8 H 13 N, boiling point 210° C.), and 
Collidine (C S H U N) have been obtained from flesh, from putrid ox pancreas, 
and from gelatin. Xencki considers collidine to be isophenylethylamine, 
C H- — CH^ a-tt'- These three bases are all highly toxic. 
1 Vaughan separated an alkaloid, which he named tyrotoxicon, from certain forms of 
bad cheese, Zischr. f. physiol. Chem., Strassburg, lid. x. S. 14»3. 
- Mytilotoxin is the alkaloid separated from mussels by Briefer. 
: ' Rep. Brit. Ass. Adv. Si-.. London, 1873. 
4 Baumann and Udranszky, Ztschr.f. physiol. Chem;, Strassburg, Bd. xiii. .S. 562. 
5 Hunter. Lancet, London, 1SS8, vol. ii. p. 654. 
6 Proc. Boy. Sue. London, vol. xv. p. 73 ; Ztschr. f. Chem. ISO*;, S. 348. 
7 Schuchardt in Maschka's "Handb. f. ger. Med.," Bd. ii. S. 60. 
8 Inaug. Diss., Dorpat, 1S69. 
9 Virchow's Archiv, Bde. xxvii., xxviii., ami xxix. 
10 Ber. d. deutsch. chem. Gesellsch., Berlin, Bd. xi. S. 808. 
11 Numerous papers; see especially Bull. Soc. chim., Paris, tome xi. p. fi. 
12 Brieger, " l)ie Ptomaine,'' 1885, part i. ; 1885, part ii. : 1886, pari iii. 
l3 Brieger, Berl. klin. Wchnschr., 1888, No. 17. u loc. eit. 
