1889.] Albumose from the Seeds 0/ Abras precatorius. 107 



76*5° C. a few symptoms follow a letlial dose, but recovery takes place ; 

 while if heated up to 79"5° C, 81°, and 100°, a lethal dose of the 

 venom does not produce death. The effect of heat varies with 

 different snake- venoms. It takes prolonged boiling to destroy the 

 activity of cobra- venom ; and in some of the American snakes simple 

 boiling does not completely destroy the activity of the venom, although 

 it diminishes it. These results are explicable in the consideration 

 that by coagulation the activity of the globulin is destroyed, and 

 by prolonged boiling the peptone or peptone-like body is decom- 

 posed. 



Abrus-poison, both globulin and albumose, produce, like snake- 

 venom, a local lesion, viz., inflammation and oedema, with ecchymosis ; 

 but the activity of venom in producing this result is enormously 

 greater than that of abrus. It is not the globulin alone of abrus 

 that produces the local lesion, but also the albumose. As in many 

 cases of such poisoning, also, the blood after death is in a fluid or 

 semi-fluid state. 



The effect of heat on abrus-poison is more marked and definite 

 than on snake- venom. The physiological activity of the globulin is, 

 e.g., completely destroyed at about its coagulation temperature, 80°C, 

 while the activity of the albumose is not destroyed until the solution 

 is raised to 85° C. 



Nature of Abrus -'poison. — To explain the action and nature of abrus- 

 poison, two theories may be stated : — 



1. That the poison is of ferment-nature attached to the proteids. 



2. That the proteids develop by contact with living tissue a body 

 or bodies which are poisonous. 



The first idea is only supported by the fact that the activity of 

 both poisonous proteids is destroyed at about the temperature at which 

 digestion ferments are destroyed. At the same time, there is no 

 evidence to show that such a temperature does not so alter the con- 

 stitution of the molecule of the proteids that they do not produce by 

 contact with living tissue toxic principles. Since there is no accurate 

 knowledge of the constitution of the proteid molecule, the question 

 as to why one proteid should be poisonous and another harmless 

 must remain unsettled. Although this is so, the results obtained in 

 the experiments on the abrus-poison are definite, and may be thus 

 summarised : — 



1. The poisonous activity of the seeds of Abrus precatorius, the 

 jequirity, resides in the two proteids present in the seeds — a para- 

 globulin and an albumose. 



2. Both of these proteids have practically the same action. They 

 produce severe conjunctivitis when applied to the eye ; and when sub- 

 cutaneously injected they cause local inflammation, oedema, and 

 ecchymosis, and gastro- intestinal irritation, with extrusion of fasces 



