Pharmaceutical Society of London. 
315 
the kidneys slightly so. The stomach contained a good deal of 
food, and the colon was full of a dark-green pulpy mass; but 
though the stomach and colon were examined throughout, no 
signs of inflammation or congestion were discovered in any part 
of them : the only change was some softening of the mucous 
membrane at the cardiac extremity of the stomach, supposed to 
be cadaveric. In the chest the lungs were found to collapse on 
opening that cavity, and appeared healthy, except a portion of 
the upper part of the left lung, which was of a deep red, and 
completely solidified. The heart felt firm, both auricles were 
filled with firmly coagulated blood, and in both it was of the same 
dark colour; the right ventricle was quite empty, the left con¬ 
tained only a small clot continuous with that in the auricle. 
To another rabbit about a third part of a thin extract, made 
from six drachms of the stalks of the plant, was given at half¬ 
past nine, a.m., of the 10th of October. The animal had been 
kept without food for the previous twenty-four hours ; it seemed 
at first dull, but showed no sign of pain or stupor, of debility 
or paralysis. In the course of an hour it had taken food, and 
then, and on two or three subsequent occasions, when it was 
seen it appeared quite well, with the exception of being rather 
less lively than before. It was seen for the last lime at half-past 
four, p.m., of the same day, and my impression was that it had 
escaped unharmed, yet on the next morning at nine it was found 
dead and quite cold and stiff. 
The stomach and colon were full of food, the liver was very 
much gorged with blood, and the kidneys slightly so; the sur¬ 
faces of the abdominal viscera were moist as in the former case; 
the lungs collapsed readily and were quite healthy; the heart 
contained dark coagulated blood in both auricles, that in the 
left being quite as dark and somewhat more abundant than that 
in the right. 
In making the above experiments, I had the advantage of the 
assistance of Mr. Curling. 
The short time in which the poison proved fatal in the first 
experiment may be accounted for by the readiness with which 
the rabbit swallowed, causing it to have a considerably larger 
