8 



BULLETIN 1023, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGEICULTUEE. 



ence. 



Suitable amounts of starch-paste suspension containing the 

 suspended alkaloid were driven into a Kjeldahl distillation flask 

 through this tube by the syringe, and were found by analysis to con- 

 tain practically the theoretical amount of nitrogen. 7 



Preliminary light ether anaesthesia was employed in all the stomach 

 tube and in a few of the subcutaneous injection experiments. The 

 anaesthesia passed off very soon. Subcutaneous injections were made 

 under the skin of the abdomen. Young white rats of known age 

 raised in the laboratory were used for testing the effect of age upon 

 the size of the lethal dose of strychnine. All rats were put in small 

 cages which were inverted to give the animals a better opportunity of 

 grasping the wire netting with their toes. This procedure was 

 adopted because it was found that rats kept in large cages sought the 

 wire netting to endure their period of strychninization. Rats kept on 

 metallic- sheet cage bottoms very easily lost their footing and had 

 more frequent spasms. Autopsies were sometimes performed to as- 

 certain the course of material injected, as well as the precision of some 

 of the injections. 



Table 3 gives data showing the relation of the alkaloid to its salts, 

 as well as solubility data. Under some circumstances it might not be 

 necessary to regard small differences in the percentage of strychnine 

 in any one of its salts, but in this case it merits consideration. 



Table 3. — Relation of strychnine to its salts and their solubility in water. 



Preparation. 



Molecu- 

 lar 

 weight. 



Contained 

 strych- 

 nine. 



Equiva- 

 lent of 

 strych- 

 nine 



sulphate. 



856 

 397 

 334 



Per cent. 



78 



84 



100 



Per cent. 

 100 

 108 

 128 



Solubility 

 in water .i 



Strychnine sulphate. 

 Strychnine nitrate. . 

 Strychnine alkaloid . 



1 in 32. 

 Iin42. 

 1 in 6,420. 



iTJ. S. Pharmacopoeia, IX. 



RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTAL WORK. 



TOXICITY OF STRYCHNINE ADMINISTERED SUBCUTANEOUSLY. 



The results of the subcutaneous administration of strychnine sul- 

 phate (Table 4) shows that the rat is exceedingly resistant to 

 strychnine, being only slightly less immune than the guinea pig and 

 very much more resistant than the rabbit, cat, dog, and ground 

 squirrel (Table 1). The fact that the wild rat appears to be slightly 

 more resistant than the white rat may be only apparent and due to 

 the experimental error. The mortality in the white rat experiments, 

 which make up Series F and which were performed on different 



L. J. Jenkins, of the Bureau of Chemistry, made the analyses. 



