790 
COLOUR-TESTS FOR STRYCHNIA, ETC. 
the probability was that, by the very law of inheritance which 
Mr. Child supposed to be at variance with the popular notion, 
that defect of peculiarity would not only be inherited by the 
offspring, but be heightened and intensified. It was well 
known that genius was sometimes closely allied to insanity, 
and that the same nervous excitement which made a man 
clever in conversation and repartee might, if carried a little 
too far, bring him into a state in which it might be said 
he had a bee in his bonnet. He agreed that offsprings of 
first cousins need not exhibit any inferiority, but facts went 
to prove that there was a greater probability of defect in 
them than in the children of other marriages. 
The President said that, though consanguineous mar¬ 
riages did not themselves produce disease, they were most 
inexpedient, inasmuch as they multiplied the chances of 
increasing and intensifying disease. He differed from those 
who said that there was nothing in human affairs corre¬ 
sponding with “ selection,” because they had overlooked the 
existence of managing (( mammas.” (Laughter.) 
ON THE COLOUR-TESTS FOR STRYCHNIA, AND THE 
DIAGNOSIS OF THE ALKALOIDS. 
Being the substance of part of the Croonian Lectures for 1861, 
delivered at the Boyal College of Physicians. 
By William A. Guy, M.B. Cantab., Fellow of the College, 
and Professor of Forensic Medicine, King’s College, London. 
[Concludedfrom p. 432.) 
The last of the four questions proposed for solution in my 
first communication still remains to be discussed. It relates 
to the diagnosis of the alkaloids, and was expressed in the 
following terms :—Is it possible by means of the colour-tests, 
or by any simple modification of them, to distinguish the 
alkaloids from each other ? 
Before proceeding to examine this question, I must briefly 
refer to what I have already stated respecting the colour-tests. 
These tests, as commonly understood, are compound tests, 
consisting first of the reaction of the alkaloid with sulphuric 
acid, and then of the reaction of the peroxides of lead and 
manganese, the bichromate of potash, the ferricyanide of 
potassium, and the permanganate of potash, with the mixture 
of the alkaloid and sulphuric acid. 
