PUTRESCIN. 265 



and irregular ; the pulse is feeble, respiration is slow and deep and 

 marked dyspnoea prevails. These symptoms soon disappear but the 

 rabbit died in about four days with ursemic symptoms. Albumi- 

 nuria was marked. 



Besides trimethylenediamin another toxin was obtained by Brieger 

 from cholera cultures, but in quantity insufficient for analysis. It 

 was obtained from the mercuric chlorid filtrate after elimination of 

 methylamin, trimethylamin, and traces of cholin and creatinin, as an 

 insoluble platinum double salt. Subcutaneous injection of this base 

 into mice produced a paralysis-like lethargic condition, slowing of 

 respiration and heart's action, lowering of temperature, and, finally, 

 death in twelve to twenty-four hours. In some cases bloody stools 

 were passed. 



Putrescin, C^Hj^Nj , is a diamin which almost invariably occurs 

 together with cadaverin with which it is closely related. This base 

 was also discovered by Brieger in 1885 (II., 42), who obtained 

 it from putrefying human internal organs (for four months at a low 

 temperature without access of much oxygen) j and from the same 

 material decomposing at the ordinary temperature of the room for 

 from three days to three weeks. It has also been obtained from 

 herring, twelve days in spring ; from pike, six days in summer ; from 

 haddock, two months (Bocklisch). Also from putrid mussel, sixteen 

 days (Brieger) ; and from human as well as horseflesh. Brieger like- 

 wise obtained it from cultures of the bacteria of human feces on gel- 

 atin, and in small quantity in rather old cultures of the comma bacil- 

 lus on beef-broth ; in larger quantity in cultures of the same germ on 

 blood-serum. Garcia found it in putrefying meat and pancreas, 

 together with cadaverin and hexamethylenediamin. The diamin 

 production at 30° is considerable in twenty-four hours ; reaches its 

 maximum in three days. Putrescin appears on the first day. Roos 

 found putrescin in stools of one case of cholera and in two cases of 

 diarrhoea or cholerin. With cadaverin it forms in the sterile auto- 

 digestion of pig's stomach (Lawrow). 



Udrdnszky and Baumann in 1888 demonstrated the existence of 

 putrescin and cadaverin in the urine of cystinuria. They found the 

 total amount of the dibenzoyl compounds in the urine in 1888 to 

 vary from 0.2—0.4 g. per day. Cadaverin made up about f of this 

 amount, and putrescin J - J. Garcia examined the same patient in 

 1892 and obtained, as an average of seven days, only 0.064 g. of 

 the dibenzoyl-compound, which contained no cadaverin (!), only 

 putrescin. With ordinary diet the average of 11 days was 0.027 g.; 

 with cheese-diet an average of 8 days gave 0.136 g.; while a carbo- 

 hydrate diet, an average of 7 days, gave 0.102 g. of the dibenzoyl- 

 compound. In the feces of the same patient, on the contrary, 

 Udrdnszky and Baumann found in 1888 that putrescin constituted 



