CHEMISTRY OF THE PTOMAINES. 275 



A Base — boiling point about 284° — was obtained by 

 Briegee (II., 61) from hiiraau livers and spleens which 

 were putrefying for two to three weeks. It occurs in the 

 mercuric chloride filtrate, as described under Saprine, page 

 220, together with some mydaleine, trimethylamine, and 

 hydrocarbons. The filtrate, after the mercury is removed 

 by hydrogen sulphide, is evaporated to dryness, and finally 

 the last traces of water are removed in a vacuum. The 

 residue is then treated with absolute alcohol, and from this 

 alcoholic solution the mydaleine is precipitated by the addi- 

 tion of alcoholic mercuric chloride. The trimethylamine 

 is separated by distillation of the alkaline filtrate, previously 

 deprived of its mercury by hydrogen sulphide ; while the 

 mother-liquor yields an oily mixture of hydrocarbons and 

 bases. The latter were separated by fractional distillation, 

 whereby only one of the bases was obtained in sufficient 

 quantity for study. It boiled at about 284°, and gave 

 with hydrochloric acid, on evaporation, a salt crystallizing 

 in beautiful, long needles, which were very easily soluble 

 in perfectly absolute alcohol. With gold chloride and picric 

 acid it gave only oily products ; with ferric chloride and 

 potassium ferricyanide, an intense blue; with platinum 

 chloride, an extremely easily soluble double salt, which 

 appeared under the microscope in the form of very fine 

 needles, while from alcohol-ether the double salt slowly 

 separated in thin plates which contained 30.36 per cent, of 

 platinum. The free base showed a slight fluorescence. It 

 is not poisonous, and, according to Brieger, is probably 

 a pyridine derivative. 



Other non-poisonous bases were present in very small 

 quantity in the mother-liquor described above, after the 

 separation of the oily mixture. 



Peptotoxine. — By this name Brieger (L, 14-19) has 

 designated a poisonous base which he has found in some 

 peptones, and hence in the digestion of fibrin ; in putre- 

 fying albuminous substances, such as fibrin, casein, brain, 

 liver, and muscles. It is a well-known fact that animal 

 tissues, in the early stages of putrefaction, possess strong 

 toxic properties, even before the decomposition could have 



