Lupinosis, Acute Toxamic Icterus. 487 



studied especially in Northern Germany where the lupin is largely 

 cultivated as a fodder crop. The yellow lupin (Xupinus Luteus) 

 is mainly to blame for the disease, but the IyUpinus Albus and 

 Augustifolius are also spoken of as factors. 



The disease caused by altered seeds and straw of the lupin is 

 mainly characterized by jaundice, fatty degeneration of the 

 hepatic cells and hypertrophy of the connective tissue of the 

 liver causing acute atrophy of the organ. 



Causes. The essential cause of the disease appears to be the 

 consumption of lupins. But all lupins are not equally poisonons. 

 Those taken from one portion of a field are harmless, while those 

 from another are toxic. In stacks built in the field and weathered 

 the upper and outer portions are often harmless while the interior 

 remains poisonous. It would seem as if the poison were washed 

 off by the rain, or deprived of its potency by the action of the 

 air. It successfully resists dry heat, for three hours at boiling 

 temperature, but is rendered harmless by steam acting under the 

 pressure of two atmospheres for the same length of time. A 

 poisonous principle (lupino-toxine) has been obtained from the 

 toxic lupins but it is not quite certain that this is the sole toxic 

 ingredient. This agent is extracted from the powdered seeds by 

 macerating them for two hours in a soda solution (in which it is 

 very soluble) at 102° F., and purified by treating the solution suc- 

 cessively with acetic acid, lead acetate, hyposulphuric acid and 

 alcohol. This agent produces the symptoms of lupinosis in the 

 acute or chronic form according to the doses of the agent ad- 

 ministered. Eichhorn and Baumstarch have isolated from lupins 

 an alkaloid analogous to conicine : Stener found an alkaloid which 

 he believed to be methylconicine : Baumert attributed the activity 

 to another alkaloid lupinine. It is not definitely known whether 

 the poisoning is usually effected by a simple poison or by a com- 

 binatiou of several. Nor is it certain whether the toxic matter 

 is a normal product of lupins grown on particular soils and under 

 given conditions and harvested at a particular stage of growth, or 

 if it is the product of a cryptogamic or bacterial growth. Some 

 leguminous seeds are poisonous at a given stage of ripening but 

 there is as yet no proof of lupinosis being confined to any particu- 

 lar stage. The common moulds often grow on lupins without 

 rendering them poisonous, but it does not follow that some less 



