56 TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
with increased cardiac action and muscular twitchings. 1:20, tetanic 
convulsions ensue, and the rodent soon after died from respiratory fail¬ 
ure. Opened chest and found the heart beating slowly but vigorously, 
and was finally arrested in diastole. 
Experiment X: Frog. After the brain was ablated, the spinal cord 
was dissected out and carefully destroj^ed. Administered then 0.002 
gramme of sparteine. No convulsions were produced. 
Fig. I. 
Tracing II. —The same, 2 minutes later. 
This evidence justifies me in assuming that the convulsions produced 
by sparteine are spinal in origin. 
Paralysis .—After the death of the animal from the effects of sparteine, 
both muscles and nerves, as has been shown, respond more or less readily 
to electrical stimulation. On the other hand, no marked depressing 
effect on these tissues is observed when they are placed in even compara¬ 
tively strong solutions of the drug. Apparently the medicament exer¬ 
cises little or no local influence. It is safe to infer, therefore, that the 
paralysis in sparteine poisoning is the result mainly of an action upon the 
cord itself. 
ON THE CIRCULATION. 
Notwithstanding the fact that sparteine exercises a decided influence 
on the circulatory system, comparatively little work has been done re¬ 
garding the actions of the drug upon this important part of the animal 
economy. The literature of the subject is not very extensive, and yet 
there appear some discrepancies in the conclusions of the various observ¬ 
ers who have devoted some attention to the matter. 
The first investigator to study the actions of sparteine on the circula¬ 
tion was Laborde.* He called attention to the influence which sparteine 
exerts on the heart of mammals, and on that of the frog, asserting that 
the remedy enormously increases the size of the pulse-waves. After La¬ 
borde, other observers carried out similar studies. Thus Gfriffe,t who 
investigated the action of sparteine on the isolated heart of the batra- 
chian, found that the alkaloid causes an increased cardiac beat through 
paralysis of the inhibitory centers, this phenomenon being followed by a 
* Compt-Bend. Soc. Biol., November 21, 1885. 
f These 224, Nancy, 1886, 
