364 poisons: their effects and detection. [§§431,432. 
disulphide, and benzene, but not so readily in alcohol. It is almost insoluble in cold 
water, and but slightly soluble in boiling water. Water precipitates it from a.solu¬ 
tion in alcohol. It is also soluble in dilute hydrochloric and sulphuric acids. It gives 
a precipitate with potassium iodide if a solution of the hydrochloride be used. The 
precipitate crystallises out of hot water in clusters of short lemon-yellow prismatic 
crystals, and has the formula of C 22 H 27 N0 4 HI. Corydaline platino-chloride has 
the composition of (C 22 H 27 N0 4 ) 2 H 2 PtCl 6 , containing Pt 16-94 per cent., and 2-44 per 
cent, of N. 
An alcoholic solution of iodine oxidises corydaline to dehydrocorydaline hydriodide, 
C 22 H 23 N0 4 HI. Dehydrocorydaline is very like berberine. The relation of corydaline 
to berberine is further shown by the formation of corydaldine when corydaline is 
oxidised :— 
CH 3 O v /CO-NH 
\c 6 h/ 
CH 3 O x x CH 2 -CH 2 
Corydaldine. 
Dobbie and Lauder, as the result of a number of researches, have provisionally 
adopted the following formula for corydaline :— 1 
CH 
HC C-OGTL, 
C 
C-OCH, 
h 2 c /X/c 
CH HC 
/a Ca / chch 3 
ch 3 o-c 
ch 3 o - c 
CH, 
ch c ch 2 
V.—The Aconite Group of Alkaloids. 
§ 431. The official aconite is the Aconitum napellus —monkshood or 
wolfsbane—a very common garden plant in this country, and one 
cultivated for medicinal purposes. The root of A. napellus is from 2 to 
4 inches long, conical in shape, brown externally, and white internally. 
The leaves are completely divided at the base into five wedge-shaped 
lobes, each of the five lobes being again divided into three linear 
segments. The numerous seeds are three-sided, irregularly twisted, 
wrinkled, of a dark-brown colour, in length one-sixth of an inch, and 
weighing 25 to the grain {Guy). The whole plant is one of great beauty, 
from 2 to 6 feet high, and having a terminal spike of conspicuous blue 
flowers. The root has been fatally mistaken for horse-radish, an error 
not easily accounted for, since no similarity exists between them. 
§ 432. Pharmaceutical Preparations of Aconite. —The preparations 
of aconite used in medicine are :— 
1 Journ. Chem. Soc ., T., 1892, p. 244; 1895, p. 67 ; 1897, p. 71 ; 1901, p. 79; 
1902, p. 145. 
