698 DRS CRUM BROWN AND FRASER ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN 



and, soon, some weakness of the limbs was observed. This weakness increased 

 until the limbs were no longer able to support the body ; and, in fourteen minutes, 

 the rabbit subsided on the abdomen and chest, with the lower jaw resting on the 

 table. There were now some slight twitches in several of the muscles of the 

 chest and thighs, and the respiratory movements were weak, though they 

 occurred at the rate of sixty-two in the minute. During other seven minutes, 

 voluntary movements could not be performed; but at the end of this period, some 

 unsteady trembling movements occurred. In twenty-four minutes, the rabbit 

 succeeded in raising the head, though only for a few seconds. It continued at 

 short intervals to raise the head, until increasing strength at length enabled it to 

 support the head normally by the neck muscles. In thirty minutes, the partial 

 paralysis had so far disappeared, that the rabbit succeeded in raising the body on 

 the limbs, and in assuming a natural sitting posture. 



Before the administration of sulphate of methyl-atropium, the pupils measured 

 6 9 oths x gVhs of an inch, and seven minutes thereafter they had become dilated 

 to -HJ-ths x £-g-ths. 



In the next experiment we administered a fatal dose. 



Experiment XXXIV. — Two grains and a-half of sulphate of methyl-atropium, 

 dissolved in twenty minims of distilled water, was injected under the skin at 

 both flanks of a rabbit, weighing three pounds and half an ounce. In two 

 minutes, there were some uneasy restless movements ; in two minutes and a 

 half, slight twitches occurred in the limbs; in three minutes, the rabbit had 

 great difficulty in going about, and weakness of the limbs was manifested by 

 frequent stumbles ; and in four minutes, paralysis had so far advanced that the 

 limbs were unable to support the body. In four minutes and a half, the animal 

 lay flaccid on the side, with shallow and infrequent respirations, and now and 

 then a feeble jerking contraction of the diaphragm accompanied inspiration. 

 Soon, the respirations were so feeble as to be hardly recognisable, and they alto- 

 gether ceased at six minutes after the injection. 



In the autopsy, it was found that the sciatic nerves retained their con- 

 ductivity at ten minutes after death, and that the heart's contractions were 

 rhythmical, and at the rate of thirty in the minute, at eleven minutes. 



In this experiment, also, the pupils were greatly dilated a few minutes after 

 the administration of the poison. 



The account we have given of these two experiments shows that the effects of 

 the sulphate of methyl-atropium are exactly the same as those of the iodide, the 

 former salt, however, being more active as a poison than the latter. 



In order to obtain some data by which to compare the action on rabbits of 

 iodide and sulphate of methyl-atropium with that of sulphate of atropia, we 

 made many experiments in which large doses of sulphate of atropia were 

 administered by subcutaneous injection ; but we found that this method of 



