THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 461 
to have been observed during the use of digitaline. The action of 
Thevetin appears, from the recorded cases of poisoning, to be more 
- vapid than in cases where digitalin is administered medicinally. 
These views of Schmiedeberg are corroborated by Cerna. His 
experiments show that Thevetin produces death by asphyxia and 
cardiac paralysis. Applied to the skin, says he, it produces irritation 
and a sensation of burning. It produces also convulsions of cerebral 
and paralysis of spinal origin. It increases intestinal peristalsis, lowers 
the temperature, and, locally applied, it increases salivation, and con- 
tracts the pupils. Warden has confirmed the statement as to the pro- 
duction of convulsions. (Dymock.) 
As against what Schmiedeberg has said—namely, that Thevetin is 
non-crystalline—De Vrij says that Thevetin is obtained at the rate of 
four per cent. from the cake left after the oil is expressed from the seed. 
It consists of a “beautiful white crystallized glucoside.” This question is 
well worthy of the study and further research on the part of the Indian 
pharmacologist. De Vrij was able to find Thevetin in the bark also of 
Cerbera thevetia. Pure Thevetin, says Dr. Warden of Calcutta, is white 
and crystalline (“ Pharma, Journal,” Vol. XIII, 3rd Series, p. 43), 
Warden has discovered a second poisonous principle in the seeds of 
Cerbera thevetia, to which he gives no name, but it is one which appears’ 
to him to possess greater activity than Thevetin. Pure Thevetin, he says 
is only faintly bitter, whereas the newly discovered poisonous principle 
is persistently bitter and non-crystalline. The latter was obtained by 
precipitating the mother-liquor left after the crystallization of Thevetin 
by aqueous tannic acid and decomposing the precipitate by lime, 
In his work on Medical Jurisprudence, Dr. Lyon observes that in India 
cases of poisoning by Cerbera thevetia in the human subject are seldom 
met with. But Dr. K. L. Dey says that he has lately found it employed 
in Bengal for homicidal purposes without raising any suspicion. Two 
cases of homicidal poisoning came under his observation in the course 
ofa month, Nine cases of cattle poisoning by the seeds of this plant 
came under the observation of Dr. Lyon in 1886, Dr. Dumortier 
records a, fatal case in a child three years old after swallowing one seed. 
I may observe here that Dr. K. L. Dey considers the oil obtained 
from the seeds of Cerbera thevetia to be a cardiac poison. He says that 
“the acrid oil contained in the kernels is a powerful acro-narcotic 
poison allied to Nux Vomica, and its effects as a poison are very rapid” 
(Pharmaceutical Journal, Vol. XII, 3rd Series, p. 397). 
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