'278 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



powerful poison. Two grains of the pure alkaloid will kill a dog ; and 

 the symptoms are frequent vomiting, followed by sopor and coma, ^nd 

 death in fifteen or twenty-four hours. In the dead body the lungs and 

 stoma,cli are found inflamed. The same effects result from injecting it 

 into a vein, or applying it to a small wound {Magendie). It appears 

 then to be a narcotico-acrid. But its irritant properties are so promi- 

 nent that it might be properly arranged with the vegetable acrids."* 



Dr. Alfred S. Taylor, in bis work on Poisons,! makes the following 

 remarks regarding emetin : — " Pelletier and Magendie found that 

 from 6 to 10 grains of the impure alkaloid given to animals caused 

 violent vomiting, followed by stupor and death in about fifteen 

 minutes. On inspection the alimentary canal was observed to be 

 inflamed." 



I should not have deemed it fair to occupy the attention of my 

 readers with such elaborate quotations on the poisonous properties of 

 emeliniSiii 1 not think that the active principle of Alangium Lamardcii, 

 from my experience of fifteen years, possesses in a pre-eminent degree 

 the properties of emetin, whether as a vascular sedative or as a 

 *' narcotico-acrid " as very appropriately termed by Christison. In my 

 experience the root-bark powder of Alangium LamarcJcii^ besides being 

 a sure emetic, has a decidedly more powerfully sedative effect on 

 the human heart and blood vessels. It is besides productive of violent 

 irritation of the mucous coat of the stomach, followed by gastric 

 catarrh lasting many days. 



The recent researches of the writers of the " Pharmacographia 

 Indica" (Dymock, Wardell and Hooper|) have, happily for me, isolated 

 a very bitter non-crystallizable alkaloid, which they have provisionally 

 called alangine. It is to be hoped that, now that Dr. Dymock is gone, 

 Dr. Wardell aud Mr. Hooper may be able to establish the identity of 

 Alangine with Emetin. I leave it to other future investigators also of 

 the pharmacological properties of Indian plants to decide this point. 



" The bark of Dogwood," a congener of Alangium^ especially of 

 Cornusflorida, say Le Maout and DeCaisne,§ " is bitter and astriu- 



* A Treatise on Poisons, p. 892, 4th Ed., Edinburgh. 



t Ed. of 1848, p. 759. 



I Vule p. 166, vol. ii. 



§ Mrs. Hooker's Translation of their General Systern of Kotany, 1873, page 477- 



