572 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 20. 



products of cadaveric putrefaction. Later, Selml saw 

 cause to believe that these organic bases, In serious 

 pathological changes, might be produced in the ani- 

 mal organism during life, a view which was confirmed 

 by Spica iu 1881. Further experiments by Paternb 

 and Spica on blood and egg albumen, and likewise 

 those of Gautier on normal urine, showed, that, by 

 the methods employed, reactions could be obtained 

 from these healthy animal fluids similar to those 

 which served to identify the ptomaines. Again: in 

 1881 Gautier communicated the discovery of a non- 

 proteid, ptomaine-like alkaloid, with poisonous prop- 

 erties, iu normal human saliva, not destroyed by 

 heat, and yielding crystalline gold and plfitiuum com- 

 pounds. Bujwid,' however, has tried physiological 

 experiments on frogs and pigeons with the concen- 

 trated alcohol-water extract from 100 cc. of boiled 

 saliva, and could obtain no poisonous action what- 

 ever. Griffin,'^ while endeavoring to explain Vul- 

 pian's results on the toxic action of human saliva, 

 carne to the following conclusions from injection ex- 

 periments on rabbits: pure parotid saliva produces 

 neither local nor general pathological changes when 

 injected subcutaneously; filtered mixed saliva, con- 

 taining, however, recognizable microphytes, produces 

 no local effect, but causes an infection which finally 

 becomes fatal; impure saliva of the mouth, collected 

 while fasting, and injected under the skin, produces 

 both a violent local action and a septic-like infection. 

 The infection obtained in all of the experiments 

 Griffin considers as a form of septicaemia, produced 

 by a substance in solution in the saliva, and not due 

 to microphytes. The local effects, however, produced 

 by the impure mixed saliva, are not to be ascribed to 

 either of the above, but to the partially putrid sub- 

 stances suspended in the fluid. These, when injected, 

 are retained by the subcutaneous tissue, and thus 

 give rise to irritation, finally producing gangrene; 

 and, at the same time undergoing further decompo- 

 sition, new putrid products are formed, which are 

 absorbed, thus giving rise to a secondary infection. 

 Coppola,^ in a similar manner, has made a series of 

 experiments on the physiological action of bases ex- 

 tracted from the blood of a healthy dog, which led 

 him to believe that bodies extracted from healthy 

 animal fluids, carefully protected from putrefactive 

 alteration, may exhibit strong toxic properties, and 

 therefore the albuminoid substances must be capable 

 of undergoing certain transformations, aside from 

 those produced by putrefaction, which may give rise 

 to poisonous alkaloids. This view is in part substan- 

 tiated by the recently published results of Brieger,* 

 who found, that, by the digestion of raw fibrine with 

 gastric juice, peptones are formed, which, although 

 free from all products of putrefaction (indo), phenol, 

 oxyacids, etc.), yield to alcohol and amyl alcohol an 

 amorphous brown mass, which, even in small quan- 

 tities, acts as a poison upon frogs and rabbits. .05-.1 

 gram of the sirupy extract was suflicient to kill a 

 frog in fifteen to twenty minutes; while, with rab- 

 bits of one kilogram weight, .5-1 gram of the ex- 

 tract was required to produce the same effect by 

 subcutaneous injection. The poisonous action is 

 first manifested in a gradual paralysis of the extremi- 

 ties; after which the animal falls into a semi-coma- 

 tose condition, and soon dies. The substance or 

 substances formed in this manner react with all of 

 the general alkaloid reagents, and are not readily 

 decomposed by long boiling, nor by the long-continued 



1 Virchow's archives, xci. 190. 



= Archives Hal. biol., ii. 106. 



■' Abstract in Journ. chem. soc, 1883, 523. 



^ Zeitschrift physiolog. chem., vii. 274. 



action of hydrogen sulphide. Length of time, in the 

 digestion of the fibrine, appears to exercise but little 

 influence on the amount of the toxic substance 

 formed. The same product was also obtained, in 

 one case, from von VVittich's dry ijeptone. The 

 poisonous substance does not come from the amyl 

 alcohol, nor from the gastric juice; neither does 

 undigested albumen yield any poisonous substance 

 when extracted with amyl alcohol. Brieger's results 

 thus confirm the previous statements of Scbmidt- 

 Miilheim, Hoffmeister, Fano, and others, that pep- 

 tones, injected into the blood or under the skin, 

 exert a poisonous action, though it would now ap- 

 pear that the action is not due to the peptones them- 

 selves, but to a substance formed simultaneously 

 with them, and which can be partially separated by 

 ethyl and amyl alcohol. Just here it is worth noti- 

 cing the recent interesting discovery of Mitchell and 

 Eeichert, that the poisonous action of rattlesnake 

 and moccason venom is due to the presence of two 

 albuminous bodies, which, from their properties, they 

 name venom-peptone and venom-glohulin. Brieger also 

 saw cause to believe that neurin, by oxidation, is 

 changed into a body similar to, if not identical with, 

 the extremely poisonous muscarin; also that a solu- 

 tion of neurin, on long standing in contact with air, is 

 partially changed into poisonous products, which, by 

 further putrefactive decomposition, disappear with 

 formation of trimethylamine, and a substance vola- 

 tilized when boiled with water. 



It would thus appear that healthy animal fluids 

 may contain substances capable of poisonous action, 

 and also that albuminous matter may undergo 

 changes other than putrefaction by which toxic sub- 

 stances may result; all of which tends to throw a 

 shadow of doubt on the existence of distinctive post- 

 mortem alkaloids. That poisonous bodies (or pto- 

 maines) do result from the pu.trefaction of organic 

 matter, there can, however, be but little question; 

 and the recent work of Guareschi and Mosso,^ of the 

 university of Turin, is, in this connection, weU wor- 

 thy of notice. These investigators have made a sys- 

 tematic study of the products of the putrefaction of 

 brain, blood, and fibrine, under varying conditions, . 

 and have fully established the formation of one or 

 more poisonous alkaloids. 



As preliminary to the actual work, a careful ex- 

 amination was made of the methods more commonly 

 used for the extraction of ptomaines, in which it was 

 found that the common extractives employed may 

 contain traces of alkaloid substances. Thus, by the 

 evaporation of large quantities of alcohol (fifty litres) 

 in the presence of tartaric acid, a small residue was 

 obtained, giving the alkaloid reactions with chloride 

 of gold, phospho-molybdic acid, etc., and containing 

 a trace of an alkaloid substance similar to pyridine, 

 thus confirming the results of previous investigators; 

 viz., Pinner, Kriimer, and others. 



In the amyl alcohol of commerce pyridine was like- 

 wise detected, in one case to the extent of 0.5 per 

 thousand. Platinum and gold salts were made and 

 analyzed. From six litres of crystallizable benzine a 

 quantity of pyridine was also obtained sufficient to 

 furnish chloroplatinates for analysis. The authors 

 therefore conclude that all previous results obtained 

 by different investigators from alkaline extracts by 

 the use of either amyl alcohol or benzine, unless 

 carefully purified, are absolutely without value as de- 

 ciding the presence of ptomaine-like bodies in fresh 

 tissue or fluids, or their formation in the putrefaction 

 of such material. 



In the search for ptomaines in putrescent brain- 

 ^ Archives itaL biol., ii. 367. 



