POISONING BY STRYCHNIA. 
403 
to demonstration, we determined to try whether the spirituous 
extract obtained from the contents of the stomach, already- 
shown by chemical tests to contain strychnine, possessed 
really the poisonous properties of that substance. 
We selected for experiment two rabbits, two mice, and 
a guinea pig, and as the most exact method of acting upon 
such animals with small quantities of poison, we applied it 
by inoculation through small openings, either into the cel- 
lular tissue beneath the skin, or into one of the serous cavities 
of the body ; also in one of the mice, giving a portion by the 
mouth. 
“ In each of these five animals thus submitted to experi- 
ment, the characteristic effects of poisoning by strychnine 
were produced. In three of them (the two mice and a 
vigorous rabbit) death ensued respectively in two minutes, 
twelve minutes, and fifty minutes, from the first introduction 
of poison. The symptoms preceding death were, disturbed 
respiration, general distress, convulsive twitchings or jerkings, 
tetanic spasms, a peculiar outstretching of the legs, and 
general rigidity of the body — symptoms which are exactly 
those commonly presented by strychnine. 
“ In the fourth animal, a rabbit, the symptoms were equally 
well marked and decisive, but although the animal lay for a 
time nearly dead, it afterwards revived, and eventually reco- 
vered. In the guinea pig the effects were at first much more 
slight, the spasms were not so strong as to throw it down or 
entirely disable it ; but on the following day it was found 
dead, with the muscles rigid and the hind legs extended, as if 
from the effects of the poison. 
“ For the purpose of comparison we conducted at the same 
time a parallel series of experiments on other animals with 
ordinary strychnine. In these animals the symptoms were 
exactly similar to those produced in the five acted on by the 
poison extracted from the body of Mrs. Dove. 
“ They were, as a series, not more severe, and not more 
rapidly fatal. These animal experiments, which add the test 
of physiological effect to that of the chemical reagents, deci- 
sively confirm our analysis, and, taking them in connexion 
with the analysis, and with the symptoms observed during 
life, and with the appearances noted in the body after death, 
they afford, in our opinion, the most complete proof that the 
death of Mrs. Dove was from the poisonous effects of strych- 
nine, and from no other cause. 
tc George Morley. 
“ Thomas Nunneley, F.R.C.S.E.” 
