POISONOUS ALKALOIDS AND ALBUMINOIDS. 357 



The first mention that is made of the probable chemical 

 composition of such organic poisonous substances is found 

 in a paper by Zuelzer and Sonnenschein, who describe 

 as an alkaloid a substance that they were able to obtain 

 from decomposing animal matter, which they said closely 

 resembled atropine in its physiological actions ; it caused 

 dilatation of the pupil, paralysis of the inhibitory fibres of 

 the vagus, so allowing the heart's action to become accelerated, 

 and paralysed the non-striped muscular fibres of the intestine. 

 This alkaloid was supposed to resemble the vegetable alkaloids 

 of which a considerable number had then been described : more 

 recent observations have shown that these alkaloids are very 

 nearly related, from the fact that they all appear to have as a 

 common basis or ground structure a substance named pyri- 

 dine, of which more immediately. In 1872 Armand Gautier 

 described as the products of albuminous decomposition a 

 number of alkaloids ; and Selmi, between 1871 and 1880, 

 described what he called cadaveric alkaloids or ptomaines, 

 and he was able to obtain two new alkaloids from pure 

 albumen that had undergone putrefactive changes. Pouchet 

 in 1880 described an alkaloid in urine, and in 1882 Bouchard 

 also described alkaloids in the human urine, which, he con- 

 sidered, were the result of the decomposition of proteid 

 matters in the alimentary canal, and which were excreted 

 from the body by the intestines and by the urine, through 

 the kidneys. He concluded that these alkaloids are usually 

 found in health in certain definite quantities, whilst in cer- 

 tain diseases — ^typhoid fever, for instance — they may be 

 enormously increased in quantity, and can then be separated 

 from the urine in very considerable quantities. 



The .first ptomaine separated pure was obtained by Nencki, 

 then Brieger obtained several of these alkaloids from pure 

 cultivations of micro-organisms, but as early as 1880, Pasteur, 

 after failing with the sterilized products of Anthrax, was 

 successful in producing the symptoms of Fowl Cholera with 

 the sterilized products of that organism, i.e., with the 

 poisonous alkaloids or proteids. Of those in the pathogenic 

 group Brieger first described the substances that he was able 

 to obtain from pure cultures of the typhoid bacillus and of 

 the tetanus bacillus. From the former he obtained typho- 

 toxine ; from tetanus cultivations tetanine, which produces 

 characteristic tetanic symptoms in animals, tetanotoxin 



