PTOMAINES AND LEUCOMA1NES. 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 shell 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 Lander 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 9 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 



Cottuline (C 8 H n N) have been obtained from flesh, from putrid ox pancreas, 

 and from gelatin. Nencki considers collidine to be isophenylethylamine, 



These three bases are all highly toxic. 



1 Vaughan separated an alkaloid, which he named tyrotoxicon, from certain forms of 

 bad cheese, Ztschr. f. phi/siol. C'hem., Strassburg, Bd. x. S. 146. 

 - Mytilotoxin is the alkaloid separated from mussels by Brieger. 



3 Rep. Brit. Ass. Adv. Sc., London, 1873. 



4 Baumann and Udranszky, Ztschr. f. physiol. Chem., Strassburg, Bd. xiii. S. 562. 



5 Hunter, Lancet, London, 1888, vol. ii. p. 654. 



e Proc. Hoy. Soc. London, vol. xv. p. 73 ; Ztschr. f. Chem. 1866, S. 348. 



7 Schuchardt in Maschka's " Handb. f. ger. Med.," Bd. ii. S. 60. 



8 Inaug. Diss., Dorpat, 1869. 



9 Virchoiv's Archiv, Bde. xxvii., xxviii., and xxix. 



10 Jicr. d. deutsch. chem. Gesellseh., Berlin, Bd. xi. 8. 808. 



11 Numerous papers; see especially Bull. Soc. chim., Paris, tome xi. p. 6. 



12 Brieger, "Die Ptomaine," 1885, part i. ; 1885, part ii. ; 1886, part iii. 



13 Brieger, Bed. kliu. Wclinschr., 1888, No. 17. 14 Loc. cit. 



