CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION. 161 



respiratory movements ; and the sensibility of the eyeball was greatly im- 

 paired. In seventeen minutes, there were no movements, except occasional faint 

 twitches of the muscles of the body, while irritation of the skin or of the eye- 

 ball did not cause any reflex movements. The rabbit was quite dead in eighteen 

 minutes. 



Four minutes after death, the heart was contracting in proper rhythm and 

 with regularity, at the rate of 164 beats per minute, and the intestinal peristalsis 

 was well marked ; the heart had however ceased to contract in other twenty-four 

 minutes, but the intestinal peristalsis continued for some time after this. Six 

 minutes after death, the gluteal muscles were exposed, and exposure caused them 

 to twitch. The sciatic nerves were at the same time stimulated with galvanism 

 and mechanical irritation, but no contractions were produced. Rigor mortis com- 

 menced about two hours and forty minutes after death. 



When sulphate of methyl-strychnium is administered to rabbits by the 

 stomach, twenty-five grains appears to be about the minimum fatal dose. The 

 symptoms and mode of death are the same as those that result from subcutaneous 

 injection. 



These experiments clearly prove that the methyl derivatives of strychnia 

 possess a very different action from strychnia itself. In none of our experiments, 

 not even in the fatal cases, were the symptoms those of strychnia-poisoning ; no 

 starts nor spasms occurred, nor did stimulation give evidence of the slightest 

 increase of reflex excitability. In fact, a condition exactly the reverse of that 

 produced by strychnia was produced by these compounds. In place of violent 

 spasmodic contractions and muscular rigidity, the appearances were those of 

 paralysis, with a perfectly flaccid condition of the muscles. The limbs of the 

 animal first yielded, its head gradually sank until it rested on the table, by- 

 and-by, it lay in a perfectly relaxed condition, and when death occurred, it was 

 due to stoppage of the respiratory movements. In the autopsis, further evi- 

 dence was obtained to distinguish the effects of the methyl-strychnium com- 

 pounds from those of strychnia. The heart was found acting with nearly its 

 normal rapidity; the spinal motor nerves were either paralysed or nearly so; 

 and, in place of the almost immediate occurrence of rigor mortis that follows the 

 action of strychnia, the muscles continued flaccid, contractile, and alkaline for 

 many hours. 



These symptoms are sufficient to suggest a close resemblance between the 

 action of the methyl derivatives of strychnia and that of curare (wourali), a well 

 known and elaborately studied poison. In a recent publication, Professor Schroff, 

 of Vienna, has indicated a resemblance of this kind between the nitrate of methyl- 

 strychnium and curare.* Both substances undoubtedly produce a condition of 



* Wochenblatt der Zuitschrift der k. k. G-esellschaft der Aertze in Wien ; vi. Band, 1866, 

 pp. 157-162. 



