THE PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTION OF TUTU. 301 



terminate with the death of the animal. This may occur from exhaustion, but as 

 the movements may apparently continue for long periods (an hour or more) the animal 

 in these cases was generally killed by chloroform. 



In the clonic movements occurring in rabbits, both fore limbs and both hind limbs 

 act in concert. The two hind limbs also act symmetrically, flexion and extension 

 movements occurring in the two limbs at the same time. The fore limbs may act 

 symmetrically or alternately. Clonic movements of one limb in a normal animal 

 I do not remember to have seen. In anaesthetised animals, however, clonic move- 

 ments of a single limb, and even independent movement of all the limbs, are not 

 uncommon. 



The development of the convulsions in a decerebrate animal after a moderate dose 

 of tutin is seen in figs. 4-6. The animal (rabbit, weight 1400 grm.) was anaesthetised 



Fig. 4. — Initial contractions of left fore foot in decerebrate rabbit after tutin. 

 Rabbit, 1400 grm. Ether. 3.25, section just in front of pons; brain 

 above removed ; ether stopped. 3. 55, 2 mg. tutin intraperitoneally. 

 4.3, twitches commenced in all limbs. Time in seconds, x | linear. 



with ether. At 3.25 the brain was cut through at the junction of the mid-brain and 

 pons, and the part above the level of the section excised. The administration of ether 

 was then discontinued. Hooks were put into each fore foot and the right hind foot, 

 and were connected by cords working over pulleys to weighted writing levers in such 

 a manner that the levers trebled the extent of the limb movements. It was found 

 impossible to maintain the two fore limbs in the same relative position to cords and 

 pulleys, and this is the explanation of the complete want of uniformity in the tracing 

 shown in fig. 6. At 3.55, 0*002 grm. tutin (1 c.c. 1 in 500 solution) was injected 

 intraperitoneally. Eight minutes later (4.3), convulsive twitches appeared in all the 

 limbs at once. At first the twitches were single (fig. 4), but later they showed a 

 tendency to doubling, and from this state developed into short tonic contractions 

 lasting one and a half to two seconds with clonic contractions at their height. These 

 occurred every minute for the next few minutes, and were followed by an interval of 



