416 poisons : their effects and detection. [§§ 496-498. 
An important case of slow poisoning is on record, 1 in which a girl was 
convicted of poisoning her two brothers, aged 21 and 22 years, who died 
after nine and eleven weeks of illness, evidently from repeated small 
doses of the powder of Veratrum album mixed with food. They became 
very weak and thin, suffered from bloody stools, sleeplessness, disturbance 
of the intellect, and delirium. 
§ 496. The post-mortem signs do not appear distinctive ; even in the 
cases just mentioned—in which one would expect to find, at all events, 
an extensive catarrh of the intestinal canal—the results seem to have 
been negative. 
§ 497. Separation from Organic Matters.— The method of Stas (by 
which the organic matters, whether the contents of the stomach or the 
tissues, are treated with alcohol, weakly acidified by tartaric acid) is to 
be recommended. After filtering, the alcoholic extract may be freed 
from alcohol by careful distillation, and the extract taken up with water. 
By now acidifying gently the watery extract, and shaking it up with 
ether petroleum, fatty matters, resinous substances, and other im¬ 
purities are removed, and it may then be alkalised by soda or potash, 
and the veratrine extracted by benzene. The residue should be identified 
by the hydrochloric acid and by the sulphuric acid and bromine re¬ 
actions ; care should also be taken to ascertain whether it excites 
sneezing. 
A ptomaine, discovered by Brouardel, 2 was described by him as both 
chemically and physiologically analogous to veratrine. A. M. Deleziniere 3 
has since investigated this substance. Only when in contact with air 
does the analogy to veratrine obtain, and Deleziniere, to ascertain its 
reactions, studied it when in an atmosphere of nitrogen. It appears to 
be a secondary monamine, C 32 H 3l N, and is in the form of a colourless, 
oily liquid, with an odour like that of the hawthorn. It is insoluble in 
water, but alcohol, ether, toluene, and benzene dissolve it readily. It 
reduces ferric salts, and oxidises in the presence of air. The salts are 
deliquescent. 
VIII.—Physostigmine. 
§ 498. The ordeal bean of Calabar ( Physostigma faba) is a large, all 
but tasteless, kidney-shaped bean, about an inch in length, and half an 
inch thick ; its convex edge has a furrow with elevated ridges, and is 
pierced by a small hole at one extremity. The integuments are coffee- 
brown in colour, thin, hard, and brittle ; they enclose two white coty¬ 
ledons, easily pulverisable, and weighing on an average 3-98 grms. 
(61 grains). The seed contains at least one alkaloid, termed Physostig- 
1 Nivet and Geraud, Gaz. Hebdom., 1861. 
2 Moniteur Scient. (3), x. 1140. a Bull. Soc. Chim. (3), i. 178-180. 
