282 POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. [§ 339 . 
Tobacco-juice, as expressed or distilled by the heat developed in the 
usual method of smoking, is very poisonous. Sonnenschein relates the 
case of a drunken student, who was given a dram to drink, into which 
his fellows had poured the juice from their pipes. The result was fatal. 
Death from smoking is not unknown. 1 Helwig saw death follow in the 
case of two brothers, who smoked seventeen and eighteen German 
pipefuls of tobacco. Marshall Hall 2 records the case of a young 
man, 19 years of age, who, after learning to smoke for two days, at¬ 
tempted two consecutive pipes. He suffered from very serious symptoms, 
and did not completely recover for several days. Gordon has also 
recorded severe poisoning from the consecutive smoking of nine cigars. 
The external application of the leaf may, as already shown in the 
case of the horse, produce all the effects of the internal administration 
of nicotine. The old instance, related by Hildebrand, of the illness 
1 The question as to whether there is much nicotine in tobacco-smoke cannot be 
considered settled ; but it is probable that most of the poisonous symptoms produced 
are referable to the pyridene bases of the general formula (C n H 2 n _ 5 N), and some 
at least of its germicidal value is due to the presence of formic aldehyde. Vohl and 
Eulenberg (Arcli. Pharmac., 2, cxlvi. 130) made some very careful experiments on 
the smoke of strong tobacco, burnt both in pipes and also in cigars. The method 
adopted was to draw the smoke first through potash, and then through dilute 
sulphuric acid. The potash absorbed prussic acid, hydric sulphide, formic, acetic, 
propionic, butyric, valeric, and carbolic acids; while in the acid the bases were 
fixed, and these were found to consist of the whole series of pyridene bases, from 
pyridene (C 5 H 5 N), boiling-point 117°, picoline (C 6 H 7 N), boiling-point 133°, lutidine 
(C 7 H 9 N), boiling-point 154°, upwards. When smoked in pipes, the chief yield was 
pyridene ; when in cigars, collidine (C 8 H 11 N) ; and in general, pipe-smoking was 
found to produce a greater number of volatile bases. The action of these bases has 
been investigated by several observers. They all have a special action on the organism, 
and all show an increase in physiological activity as the series is ascended. The 
lowest produce merely excitement from irritation of the encephalic nervous centres, 
and the highest, paralysis of those centres. Death proceeds from gradual failure of 
the respiratory movements, leading to asphyxia—(Kendrick and Dewar, Proc. Roy. 
Soc., xxii. 442 ; xxiii. 290). A. Gautier found that tobacco smoked in a pipe pro¬ 
duced basic compounds, a large quantity of nicotine, and a higher homologue of 
nicotine, C n H ie N 2 , which pre-exists in tobacco leaves, and a base C 6 H 9 NO, which 
seems to be a hydrate of picoline—( Gompt. Rend., cxv. 992, 993). The deri¬ 
vatives of the pyridene series are also active. The methiodides strongly excite 
the brain and paralyse the extremities. A similar but more energetic action is 
exerted by the ethyl and allyl derivatives ; the iod-allyl derivatives are strong 
poisons. Methylic pyridene carboxylate is almost inactive, but the corresponding 
ammonium salt gives rise to symptoms resembling epilepsy—(Ramsay, Phil. Mag., 
[5] iv. 241, 1877). One member of the pyridene series, jS-lutidine, has been fully 
investigated by C. Greville Williams and W. H. Waters— (Proc. Roy. Soc., xxxii. 
162, 1881). They conclude that it affects the heart profoundly, causing an in¬ 
crease in its tonioity, but the action is almost confined to the ventricles. The auricles 
are but little affected, and continue to beat after the ventricles have stopped. The 
rate of the heart’s beat is slowed, and the inhibitory power of the vagus arrested. 
By its action on the nervous cells of the spinal cord, it in the first place lengthens 
the time of reflex action, and .then arrests that function. Finally, they point out 
that it is antagonistic to strychnine, and may be successfully employed to arrest the 
action of strychnine on the spinal cord. 
2 Edin . Med. and Surg. Jour., xii., 1816, 
