565 
ANTIDOTE TO STRYCHNIA. 
The active principle of tobacco— nicotine —has been pro¬ 
posed by Mr. S. Haughton as an antidote to strychnia. He 
was led to try the effects of nicotine as an antidote from the 
opposite physiological properties of that substance when 
compared with those of strychnine, (the former producing 
relaxation and the latter contraction of the muscles) ; and 
he conceived that it was possible, from their opposite effects, 
that they might mutually neutralize, as it were, each other’s 
action. To determine this important question he instituted 
several interesting experiments on frogs, which he placed 
in different solutions of strychnine and of nicotine, and the 
results clearly show the correctness of his inference as to 
nicotine being more or less an antidote to strychnine. 
An infusion of tobacco, it appears, has been thus used 
with success in the United States .—Chemical News. 
TWO ACTIVE PRINCIPLES IN THE SQUILL. 
M. Ma.ndet has separated two active principles from the 
Scilla marithna —one an irritating poisonous body, to which 
he has given the name skuleine; the other, scillitine , pos¬ 
sessing in a high degree all the diuretic and expectorant 
properties of the squill, but incapable of producing the 
accidents which have followed the administration of some of 
its preparations. We hope we shall soon be told how T the 
latter useful and harmless body is separated from its dan¬ 
gerous relative.— Ibid. 
DETECTION OE ERGOT IN RYE PLOUR. 
Pure and white rye flour keeps its colour when mixed 
with water in a mortar; but Eisner points out that if only 
two per cent, of ergot be added, the flour, when wetted, 
changes from white to a chamois-leather colour. With but 
one per cent, the change is apparent. Wittstein gives a 
process founded on the disengagement of trimethylamine 
when ergot is treated with potash. The suspected flour 
is moistened with water, and then introduced into a tube 
and covered with a solution of caustic potash. In a short 
time the fishy smell is very apparent, but it is developed 
much more quickly when the mixture is heated. It is best, 
the author thinks, to operate in the cold, and cork the 
mixture up in the tube. The flour then becomes yellow, 
and at the same time manifests the odour in question.— 
Ibid. 
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