MEDICAMENTS AND LIFE. 219 
tact with the alkalies of the blood; it produces chloroform 
in it, but so very slowly that the sleep induced may last 
for some hours. This sleep, less deep and more quiet than 
that obtained by chloroform, has the additional advantage 
that it may be prolonged without any inconvenience by 
new doses of the anesthetic compound. The success of 
chloral has been rapid. From 1832 to 1868, a few kilo- 
grammes of it had been prepared for the demands of sci- 
ence; at present the Berlin manufactories, of themselves, 
furnish to commerce a hundred kilogrammes daily. This 
popularity is well founded, and will last, and the more so 
because chloral is not merely the same thing for medicine 
that chloroform is for surgery. It singularly lessens the 
excito-motor power of the spinal marrow, and may thus 
claim to be of remarkable utility in the treatment of several 
complaints ; but is especially applied every day in calming 
violent and stubborn pain, like that of inflammatory rheu- 
matisms. 
The poppy contains several alkaloids which differ in 
their effects respectively. Various plants present the like 
complexity as regards therapeutics; others, on the con- 
trary, like hemlock and belladonna, contain only a single 
alkaloid. Cicutine, the extract of hemlock, and atropine, 
obtained from belladonna, have very lately been the sub- 
ject of interesting examinations. Martin, Damouret, and 
Pelvet, who have studied hemlock, have confirmed by ex- 
periment the precision of those historic details which have 
come down to us as to the symptoms experienced by Soc- 
rates, after he had swallowed the deadly draught.’ Atro- 
pine has opened a new path in the treatment of disorders 
of the eye, thanks to the singular property it has of dilat- 
1“ When they brought him the poison, Socrates asked what he had to 
do. ‘Nothing,’ answered the jailer, ‘but to walk about after swallow- 
ing it, till you feel a heaviness in the legs.’ He drank, and walked about, 
and, as soon as he felt his legs weaken, he lay down on his back. Atthe 
