458 POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. [§§ 574 - 576 - 
may be decomposed by baryta, filtered, and the filtrate freed from baryta by 
carbon dioxide ; the filtrate from this contains neriin with baric iodide ; it is there¬ 
fore treated with silver sulphate, then again with baryta, next with carbon dioxide, 
and also with SH 2 to get rid of the last trace of silver. 
The filtrate will also contain some oleandrin, which, by evaporating slowly in 
a vacuum, separates gradually in the form of a clear, resinous mass. It can be filtered 
off, and the neriin then may be precipitated pure by fractional precipitation. Its 
physiological action is the same as that of digitalein. 
§ 574. The Nerium oleander has several times caused grave symptoms of poison¬ 
ing, and they have usually fairly agreed with those produced by foxglove. For 
example, Maschka 1 relates the case of a boy, 2 years old, who ate two handfuls of 
the Nerium oleander. The effects commenced in ten minutes, the child was un¬ 
easy, and vomited. In six hours a sleepy condition came on ; the face was pale, 
the skin cold, the pupils contracted, and the pulse slow and irregular. After the 
sickness the boy woke up, but again fell asleep, and this occurred frequently ; 
coffee was given, which appeared to do good. The pulse was intermittent. On 
the following day the child was still ill, with an intermittent pulse, frequent vomiting, 
feebleness, sleeplessness, and dilatation of the pupil; there was no diarrhoea; on the 
contrary, the bowels were confined. On the third day recovery followed. 
In an Indian case, 2 the symptoms were altogether peculiar, and belonged rather 
to the convulsive order. A woodcutter, aged 35, near Kholapore, took, for the 
purpose* of suicide, a little over an ounce of the expressed juice of the oleander. The 
symptoms began so rapidly that he had not time to walk five yards before he fell 
insensible; he was brought to the hospital in this state ; the face on his arrival was 
noticed to be flushed, the breathing stertorous, there were violent spasmodic contrac¬ 
tions of the whole body, more marked on the left than on the right side. The effect 
of this was remarkable. During the intervals of the spasm the patient lay evenly 
on his back, and when the convulsions commenced the superior contraction of the left 
side threw him on to the right, in which position he remained during the paroxysm, 
after the subsidence of which he fell back into his old position. The evacuations 
were involuntary and watery ; the man was insensible, with frequent convulsions of 
the kind described, for two days, but on the third day became conscious, and made a 
good recovery. 
In any case of poisoning, the methods by which neriin and oleandrin are separated 
from the plant can be applied to separate them from the tissues with more or less 
success. Here, as in all the other digitalin-like glucosides, physiological tests are 
alone of value in the final identification. 
§ 575. The Madagascar Ordeal Poison. —To this group may also belong the 
poison of the Tanyhinia venenifera, a tree in the island of Madagascar, the fruit of 
which is used as an ordeal poison. It may be obtained in crystals ; it is insoluble 
in water, and very poisonous. The upas of Singapore is also said to contain with 
strychnine a glucoside similar to antiarin. 
2. SUBSTANCES WHICH BEHAVE LIKE THE DIGIT ALINS. 
§ 576. Apocynin, which with apocynein (a glucoside) occurs in Apocynum 
cannabinum onabam, an East Indian arrow poison ; echujin, a North-West African 
arrow poison ; urecthin and urechitoxin from Urechitis suberecta; lcovallamarin, 
a glucoside from May-flowers ; Icoronillin, a glucoside from Coronilla scorpioides ; 
cheiranthin, a glucoside from Cheiranthus cheiri, are all substances which have a 
similar action to digitalis on the heart. Erythrophlein is an alkaloid, not a gluco¬ 
side, and is obtained from the bark of the Erythrophlceum guineense (West Africa). 
It acts on the heart like digitalis, and has also effects similar to picrotoxin. 
1 Vierteljahrsschrift f. gericht. Med., Bd. ii. No. 17, 1860; Brit, and For. Med. 
Chir. Review, xxvi. 523, 1860. 
2 Trans. Med. and Phys. Soc. of Bombay, 1854. 
