POISONING BY STRYCHNIA. 
401 
“ Probably a still less quantity of this extraordinary agent 
may be made manifest if inserted under the skin, or injected 
into the stomach. 
“ In a short time the frog becomes affected with tetanoid or 
epileptoid spasm or convulsion on the application of the slight- 
est cause of excitation. It is strychnoscopic. 
“This susceptible creature may, I am persuaded, be made 
available for the detection of several other poisons, with each 
of which the kind and form of the phenomena vary. 
“ Strychnia in the vegetable kingdom answers to the 
diastaltic spinal system in the animal kingdom, on the centre 
of which its energies are impressed — a system, the extent of 
which in the animal economy — next to that of the blood 
itself— is not even now*, after the lapse of nearly a quarter 
of a century, by any means known or appreciated by the 
profession ! 
“In this system there is a kind of 6 solidarity / by which 
every part is affectible by the excitation of every other : — in 
reality, the spinal centre is what the great sympathetic was 
formerly supposed to be ! — but there is a speciality too, by means 
of wffiich one organ may be affected more or less than the 
rest, thus leading to the difference of form of the phenomena 
produced, to which I have adverted. The motor branch of 
the fifth pair is most affected in traumatic tetanus, the laryn- 
geals in strychnism. 
“I am preparing an essay on the important subject of 
strychnia as a remedy, a poison, and as a physiological agent.” 
We have been much impressed with the importance of 
this mode of testing strychnine, from perceiving in the public 
prints the following reports, made by Messrs. Morley and 
Nunneley, at the coroners inquest held in a recent case of 
suspected poisoning with this agent at Leeds. The course 
of procedure adopted by them may serve as a guide for 
others : 
“ Each of the three portions into which the stomach and 
its contents were divided was subjected to the following 
process of analysis : 
“1. It w r as mixed with a sufficient portion of distilled 
water, acidulated with a sufficient portion of sulphuric acid, 
heated in a porcelain dish, and then the liquid portion w as 
separated by filtration. The liquid portion thus filtered was 
treated wdth carbonate of lime, so as to neutralize the sul- 
phuric acid. It was then slowly evaporated until it became 
nearly dry. 
“To this mass rectified spirit w r as added, in progressive 
