94 



Drs. S. Martin and R. N. Wolfenden. [May 16, 



In conclusion, the author stated it was impossible in a short abstract 

 to go into the details of the subjects here discussed, and for further 

 information the reader must be referred to the paper itself. 



II. "Physiological Action of the Active Principle of the Seeds 

 of Abrus precatorius (Jeqnirity)." By SIDNEY MARTIN, M.D. 

 London, British Medical Association Research Scholar, 

 Assistant Physician to the Victoria Park Chest Hospital, 

 and R. Norris Wolfenden, M.D. (Cantab.). (From the 

 Physiological Laboratory, University College.) Communi- 

 cated by E. A. Schafer, F.R.S. Received April 11, 1889. 



The object of the present investigation was to study the physio- 

 logical action of the active principle of the jequirity seed. A 

 watery infusion of the seeds, as is well known, produces severe in- 

 flammation of the conjunctiva when a few drops are placed in the 

 eye ; and when injected under the skin, or as in the " sui " poisoning 

 of cattle in India, it is fatal to animals. 



Both the local irritant and the poisonous properties of the seed 

 were formerly ascribed to a specific organism, called the jequirity 

 bacillus, the nature of which was investigated by Sattler, Cornil, and 

 Berlioz. Klein, however, showed that the action could not be due 

 to a bacillus, since the poison was permanently destroyed by mo- 

 mentary boiling of the infusion. Warden and Waddell have effectu- 

 ally disposed of the bacillus theory of the action of jequirity, and in 

 a pamphlet entitled the ' Non-Bacillar Nature of Abrus Poison ' (Cal- 

 cutta, 1884), they demonstrated that the poisonous activity of the 

 seeds was dependent on a proteid body which was called by them 

 Abrin. Abrin was considered to be closely allied to egg-albumin 

 and the vegetable albumins. The reactions given by Warden and 

 "Waddell are, however, by no means conclusive that abrin belongs to 

 the class of " albumins " as understood by physiological chemists. 

 The fact that it is precipitated from solution by acetic acid shows 

 that it is not an albumin : this is a reaction common to globulin and 

 certain other proteid s, such as alkali- albumin. The reactions, more- 

 over, given by these observers as given by abrin are not distinctive 

 of it, but are common to all proteid s. 



To clear up these discrepancies the proteids of the seed were in- 

 vestigated by one of us (M.), and in a paper published in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the Royal Society ' (vol. 42, p, 331) two proteids were 

 described, a globulin and an albumose. The globulin was found to 

 be vegetable paraglobulin, being soluble in 15 per cent, sodium 

 chloride solution, and coagulating in 10 per cent, magnesium sulphate 



