and removed various oily and resinous substances by precipitation 
with water and extraction with petroleum ether. These resinous 
bodies were not toxic. Vejux-Tyrode (1904) later obtained similar 
resinous bodies to which he ascribed a high degree of toxicity, but 
Heyl and Hepner (1913) could not confirm this. 
Hunt purified the extract further, and then, by extraction with 
chloroform, obtained an amorphous substance alkaline to litmus and 
giving the usual alkaloidal reactions. It was very slightly soluble in 
water, but readily soluble in dilute acids. When treated with con- 
centrated sulphuric acid this substance dissolved with the formation 
of an orange-yellow solution; the color soon became a blood orange, 
and finally a bright cherry red. This play of colors corresponds 
almost exactly to that caused by cevadin and to that recently 
described by Heyl, Hepner, and Loy (1913) for zygadenin, an 
alkaloid obtained by them from Zygadenus intermedins. Hunt 
found, as did Heyl, Hepner, and Loy later, that the alkaloid was not 
readily extracted with ether. When the alkaloid or mixture of 
alkaloids was further purified, dissolved in alcohol, and the alcohol 
allowed to evaporate, a clear, glassy residue with a few cubes or 
prisms was obtained. This began to darken at 185° C. At 197° C. 
part of it melted to form a red solution, but all of it did not melt 
until a temperature of 220° C. was reached. It is quite probable that 
this mixture consisted in part of the alkaloid since isolated by Heyl, 
Hepner, and Loy and named by them zygadenin. Zygadenin crys- 
tallizes from alcohol in " orthorhombic blocks" and melts to a red oil 
at 200° to 201° C. Hunt pointed out a number of resemblances and 
also certain differences between the reactions of the alkaloids obtained 
from Zygadenus and those given by cevadin and other veratrin 
alkaloids and concluded that both chemically and pharmacologically 
the two series were closely related. 
Tor aid Sollman, in a report submitted to the Department of Agri- 
culture in 1903, stated that he could find no poisonous principle in 
Zygadenus other than the alkaloid or mixture of alkaloids found by 
Hunt. 
These results were confirmed by Slade (1905) and by Heyl, Hepner, 
and Loy. The latter authors carried the work to the point of 
isolating in pure form an alkaloid which they named zygadenin, 
although the question whether this may not be identical with some 
one of the veratrin alkaloids is, perhaps, still open. It may also be 
doubted whether zygadenin is the most important toxic agent in 
Zygadenus, for these authors quote Mitchell as reporting that "it 
(zygadenin) kills guinea pigs slowly and only in comparatively large 
doses." Hunt found 4 milligrams per kilo of his alkaloidal prepara- 
tion to be fatal to rabbits in an hour or two. Sollman found about 
the same amount of cevadin to be fatal. 
