446 
POISON OF THE UPAS ANTIAR. 
without in any way securing those punctures, I introduced 
the two foetuses alive and tetanic into the abdominal cavity 
of another cat under chloroform, and allowed them to remain 
there for more than twenty minutes. Not the slightest 
symptom of strychnia w T as produced in the cat. 
We are naturally reminded by the negative result of these 
experiments of the impunity with w r hich a mother may 
carry a dead and decomposing foetus. In neither case is 
there any longer a circulation. 
In the following experiment the possibility of the fallacy 
occurring, which has just been alluded to, was prevented : 
Experiment 3. — A cat, far advanced in pregnancy, was ren- 
dered insensible by chloroform. The abdomen was opened, 
and the uterus exposed. It was carefully divided at a part 
to which a placenta was not attached, and a vigorous foetus 
extracted in its membranes which were removed from it. It 
was carefully supported on a napkin, and into the abdominal 
cavity about ten minims of the solution were injected. The 
portion of integument around the puncture was then care- 
fully pinched up and secured by a ligature, so as to prevent 
the possibility of any escape of the solution. A second foetus 
was then extracted, and treated exactly in the same manner. 
Both, with the portion of the uterus, were then returned 
into the abdomen, which was closed with sutures. 
For ten minutes from the period of the first injection, the 
cat lay on her side, breathing tranquilly. Then slight spasms 
ensued in the hinder extremities; these gradually increased, 
and at length passed into violent and general ones. In seven 
minutes more the cat was dead. 
The abdomen was then re-opened, and the ligatures placed 
upon the punctures in the foetuses were found still perfectly 
secure. Both the injected foetuses were yet alive. Within a 
few minutes after they were injected, they exhibited decided 
spasms, and these continued for a long period after the death 
of the mother frequently to recur. The other foetuses were 
1. — Lancet. 
0fcS®H,VATI05TS ON THE POISON OF THE UPAS ANTIAR. 
' A A i \ i II 
,,}5y Professor Albert Kolliker. 
stay in England, in the autumn of 1857, I 
was so fortunate as to acquire the rare poison of the famous 
Antiaris toxicaria (Lesch.), with which no experiments have 
