OF THE CALABAR BEAN. 723 



After this evidence, it is almost superfluous to remark that physostigma- 

 paralysis cannot be caused by an action on striped muscle, as at least one 

 observer of note has maintained.* Although the effects on muscle have been 

 the first considered, it may be proper to remark here that idio-muscular irrita- 

 bility is the last vital property to disappear in death by Calabar bean, especially 

 as this result has been foreshadowed in several of the experiments already 

 given. Its loss is, moreover, only indirectly caused by physostigma, and the 

 evidence is sufficient to show that it follows the cessation of the blood supply, 

 which is necessary for its manifestation, in tolerably definite periods. As the 

 circulation sometimes ceases more abruptly than at others, so does the loss of 

 muscular irritability sometimes occur more quickly, and without much previous 

 gradual diminution of activity. In the former case, rigor is well marked and 

 comparatively prolonged ; in the latter, and chiefly with frogs, it is slight, and 

 the very partial nutritive activity which has been for many hours maintained by 

 a sluggish blood-stream, favours the almost immediate occurrence of decomposi- 

 tion, and, therefore, of a short period of rigor mortis, when the circulation has 

 finally stopped. 



In the experiments with mammals and birds, an early and constant symptom 

 was the occurrence' of successive muscular contractions of a non-co-ordinate 

 character ; and this formed a striking contrast with the flaccid and motionless con- 

 dition of the muscles which persisted throughout the poisoning of cold-blooded 

 animals. Generally speaking, these contractions were very feeble, and consisted 

 of slight spasmodic twitches, which, in mammals, usually began at the neck and 

 then extended over the body, and which at first involved detached portions of 

 the panniculus carnosus muscle only, and then apparently every muscle of the 

 body and extremities. In the slighter cases, and, I think, where a small dose was 

 being but slowly absorbed, a mere tremulous movement was caused of the head, 

 body and extremities, similar probably to the " tressaillements " which Claude 

 Bernard describes as occurring during curare poisoning,f and which have likewise 

 been noticed with that substance by Watte rton, and by Martin- Magron and 

 Butsson.J In one or two of my experiments, however, this muscular action 

 became so strong, that the animal appeared as if under the action of a poison 

 which produces convulsions. The twitches always became more marked when 

 the poisonous effects were fully developed, they gradually diminished in strength 

 as death approached, and they continued in a slight form for many minutes after 

 it. Exposure of the muscles to the air, and irritation with a knife, during the 

 autopsy, increased their strength, and even originated them in muscles and parts 



* Nunneley on the Calabar Bean, &c. Lancet, 1863, p. 23, and Pamphlet, 

 f Lecons sur les Effets des Substances Toxiques et Medicamenteuses, 1857, p. 268. 

 | Action comparee de l'extrait de Noix Vomique et du Curare sur reconomie animale. Journal 

 de la Physiologie de l'Homme et des Animaux, tome troisieme p. 327, &c. 



VOL. XXIV. PART III. 9 L 



