COLCHICUM. 191 



bulbs, immediately after they are dug up, be cut into transverse 

 slices, not thicker than one-eighth of "an inch, and dried by 

 placing the slices on clean white blotting paper, distinct from 

 one another, without heat, or at a very low temperature. The 

 test of the drug being good and properly dried is the appearance 

 of a blue colour on rubbing it with a little distilled vinegar and 

 the alcoholic solution of guaiacum. The slices should be pre- 

 served in well-stopped bottles. 



The recent bulb, when taken up at the proper season, is in-- 

 odorous, bitter, hot, and acrid to the taste, and if a small por- 

 tion be swallowed, a sensation of warmth is produced in the 

 stomach. These properties are thought to reside in the milky 

 juice which exudes when the bulb is cut transversely, and which 

 contains a peculiar alkaloid, called Veratrine *. The other com- 

 ponents are a fatty matter, gallic acid, a yellow colouring mat- 

 ter, gum, starch, sugar, inulin in great abundance, and a small 

 quantity of lignin. Wine and vinegar are employed to extract 

 its active qualities. Sir Everard Home ascribes the nauseating 

 effect that is sometimes produced by the wine to a sediment 

 formed in it, and which ought always to be removed. 



Poisonous Propeb.ties. — There can be no doubt of the dele- 

 terious and sometimes fatal effects of the Meadow-Saffron upon 

 animals, but contradictory statements are given on this point by 

 different authors ; some affirming that horses eat the flowers of 

 the plant with impunity, while others state that they never 

 touch it, let it be ever so plentiful. Cattle seldom eat the 

 plant as it grows in meadows, but when dried and mixed with 

 hay it has produced fatal consequences. " Fallow-deer, after 

 eating it in their forage, have been seized with extreme pain 

 and a copious flux of blood, and after death the stomach and 

 intestines exhibited evident traces of inflammation and gan- 

 grene." f Scopoli t mentions that a calf died from eating the 

 flowers, and Storck § relates some experiments in which a small 



* This substance also exists in the seeds, and was so called because it 

 was found abundantly in White Hellebore {Veratrum Album). Geiger and 

 Hesse (Journal de Pharmacie, xx. p. 164) have lately discovered a new alka- 

 loid, which they have named Colchicia, 



t Bresl. Sam. 1720, p. 668. 



X Flora Cam. ed. 1. p. 229. 



§ De Colchico, p. 17. Exper. I7. 



