STRYCHNIN-LIKE SUBSTANCES. 239 



chemist to be the alkaloid of the water hemlock (Cicuta virosa), is 

 thought by Otto, Husemann, and others, to be a cadaveric conim. 

 Otto says that the symptoms reported in the case were not those of 

 either coniin or cicuta. Sonnenschein obtained the base six weeks 

 after the exhumation of the body, which had been buried three 

 months. The base had the odor of coniin, the taste of tobacco, gave 

 with potassium bichromate and sulphuric acid the odor of butyric 

 acid, and behaved with the reagents like coniin. 



Husemann states that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the 

 chemist to affirm with certainty that he has detected true coniin in 

 the body. The symptoms and the post-mortem appearances must 

 conform with those induced -by the vegetable alkaloid. The analysis 

 must be made before decomposition sets in, and the amount of the 

 base found must be sufficient for physiological experimentation. 



A Nicotin-like Substance. — ^Wolckenhaar obtained from the 

 decomposed intestines of a woman, who had been dead six weeks, by 

 extraction with ether from an alkaline solution, a base bearing a 

 close resemblance to nicotin. This base was fluid, at first yellow, 

 but becoming brownish-yellow on exposure to the air. It was 

 strongly alkaline and gave off an odor resembling that of nicotin, 

 but stronger, more ethereal, benumbing, and similar to that of fresh 

 poppy heads. It was soluble in all proportions of water, and the solu- 

 tions, which did not become cloudy on the application of heat, did 

 not taste bitter, but were slightly pungent. The peculiar odor did 

 not disappear on saturating the base with oxalic acid. The hydro- 

 chlorid was yellow like varnish, had a strong odor and became moist 

 on exposure to the air. Under the microscope it showed no crystals, 

 thus differing from nicotin hydrochlorid. It also differed from 

 nicotin in its reactions with potassio-bismuthic iodid, gold chlorid, 

 iodin solution, mercuric chlorid, and platinum chlorid, and it did 

 not give the Roussin test. Furthermore, it could not be identified 

 with trimethylamin, spartein, mercurialin, lobelin, or other fluid and 

 volatile bases. 



Strychnin-like Substances. — In a criminal prosecution at Verona, 

 Ciotta obtained from the exhumed, but only slightly decomposed, 

 body, an alkaloid which gave a crystalline precipitate with iodin in 

 hydriodic acid, a red coloration with hydriodic acid, and a color test 

 similar to that of strychnin with sulphuric acid and potassium bi- 

 chromate. This substance was strongly poisonous, but did not pro- 

 duce the tetanic convulsions characteristic of strychnin. Ciotta pro- 

 nounced this substance as probably identical with strychnin, but 

 Selmi, to whom portions of the body were subsequently submitted, 

 found that the substance giving the color reaction was not crystalline, 

 and that there was only the presumption of a bitter taste to it, while 



