placed in a large earthenware vessel. The seeds and surrounding pulp should he scooped out upon the sieve, and washed with 
repeated affusions of cold water, by which they will be freed from all adhering juice. Something will be saved also by afterward* 
rinsing the split cucumbers themselves in cold water, from which a portion of elaterium may be collected. 
“ After standing a few hours, a sediment is formed from which the clear liquor is to be poured off ; it is then to be thinly 
spread on fine linen, and exposed to the air to dry : a gentle warmth may be employed without injury; but the access of sun- 
shine destroys the fine green colour which the substance otherwise acquires.” — (Clutterbuck.) 
Since the foregoing experiments were tried by Drs. Clutterbuck, Paris, and Faraday, a further series 
of investigations has been made by Mr. Hennell, of Apothecaries’ Hall, and Dr. Morries, of Edinburgh. 
From the researches of these gentlemen, carried on wholly independently of each other, it appears, that even 
the Elatin of Drs. Paris and Faraday is not a simple proximate principle, but a compound body, consisting 
of the true active ingredient now named Elaterine, mixed with a green resin-like matter, similar to chlorophylle 
or the colouring matter of leaves. 
“Elaterine may be procured by evaporating the alcoholic infusion of Elaterium to the consistence of thin oil, and throwing 
it into boiling distilled water ; upon which a white crystalline precipitate is formed, and more falls down as the water cools. 
This precipitate, when purified by a second solution in alcohol, and precipitation by water, is pure Elaterine. In mass it has a 
milky appearance. The crystals are microscopic rhombic prisms, striated on the sides. It is intensely bitter. It does not dis- 
solve in the alkalis nor in water, is sparingly soluble in diluted acids, but easily soluble in alcohol, ether, and fixed oil. It has 
not any alkaline reaction on litmus. This substance, it is very evident, from the above condensed account, is a very different 
body from the Elatin previously mentioned.” * 
Elaterine, as it has been named by Dr. Morries, or, Elateria as it has been called by Mr. Hennell, may 
be procured from the Elatin of Drs. Paris and Faraday, by “acting on that compound body by ether, when 
a substance is left which is soluble in alcohol; and which on leaving the tincture at rest to spontaneous 
evaporation, crystallizes in acicular tufts. These crystals are nearly colourless, they are scarcely soluble in 
water, and the undiluted acids. They do not form neutral salts with acids. They consist of seventeen parts 
of carbon, eighteen of oxygen, and eleven of hydrogen.” 
“ The activity of Elatin as a cathartic, is (continues Dr. Thompson) almost incredible ; it operates violently when only one 
minim of an alcoholic tincture, consisting of one grain of Elateria dissolved in ninety-six minims of strong alcohol, is administered. 
Hence it operates in doses of less than the 96th part of a grain. This extreme activity has hitherto prevented this principle 
being employed medicinally in its pure state, as a cathartic, even in the alcoholic solution. 
Poisonous Effects. — Elaterium very much resembles the Helleborus niger in its effects. 
“ Elaterine is a poison of very great activity. A tenth of a grain, as I have myself witnessed, will some- 
times cause purging in man ; and a fifth of a grain in two doses administered at an interval of twenty-four 
hours to a rabbit, killed it seventeen hours after the second dose. The best British Elaterium contains 26 
per cent, of this active principle, the worst 15 per cent.; but French Elaterium does not contain above 5 or 
6 per cent.” These facts, as Dr. Christison continues, sufficiently account for the great irregularity in the 
effects of the ordinary drug, as a cathartic. 
* Vide Christison, p. 525 ; Dr. Morries’ Essay in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, xxxv. 339 ; and Mr. Hennell’s paper 
in the Journal of the Royal Institution, i. 592. 
