532 poisons: their effects and detection. [§§702,703. 
Atropine is an antidote to neurine, relieving in suitable doses the 
effects, and even rendering animals temporarily immune against the 
toxic action of neurine. 
When a fatal dose of neurine is injected into a frog there is in a 
short time paralysis of the extremities. The respiration stops first, and 
afterwards the heart, the latter in diastole. 
The symptoms in rabbits are profuse nasal secretion and salivation 
with paralysis, as in frogs. Applied to the eye, neurine causes con¬ 
traction of the pupil ; to a less degree the same effect is produced by 
the ingestion of neuiine. 
Trimethyloxyammonium hydrochloride causes similar symptoms to 
neurine, but the action is less powerful.—V. Cervello, Arch. Ital. Biol., 
vii. 232-233. 
§ 702. Betaine. —Betaine may be separated from a solution in alcohol 
as large deliquescent crystals ; the reaction of the crystals is neutral. 
Distilled with potash, trimethylamine and other bases are formed. 
Betaine chloride, C 5 H 12 N 0 2 C1, forms plates permanent in the air and 
insoluble in absolute alcohol. A solution of the chloride in water gives, 
with potassium mercuric iodide, a light yellow or whitish yellow 
precipitate, soluble in excess ; but on rubbing the sides of the tube 
with a glass rod, the oily precipitate crystallises as yellow needles ; 
probably this is characteristic. 
The aurochloride (Au —43*1 per cent.) forms fine cholesterine plates, 
soluble in water ; melting-point 209°. Betaine is not poisonous. 
§ 703. Peptotoxine. —Brieger submitted to the action of fresh, gastric 
juice moist fibrin for twenty-four hours at blood-heat. The liquid was 
evaporated to a syrup and boiled with ethylic alcohol, the ethylio 
alcohol was evaporated, the residue digested with a my lie alcohol, and 
the amyl alcohol in its turn evaporated to dryness ; the residue was a 
brown amorphous mass that was poisonous. It was further purified by 
treating the extract with neutral lead acetate and then filtered ; the 
filtrate was freed from lead by SH 2 and treated with ether, the ethereal 
extract being then separated and evaporated to dryness ; this last residue 
was taken up with amyl alcohol, the alcohol evaporated to dryness, and 
the residue finally taken up with water and filtered. The filtrate is 
poisonous. The poisonous substance, to which Brieger gave the pro¬ 
visional name of peptotoxine, is a very stable substance, resisting 
the action of a boiling temperature, and even the action of strong alka¬ 
lies. It gives precipitates with alkaloidal group reagents, and strikes 
a blue colour with ferric chloride and ferricyanide of potassium. The 
most characteristic test seems to be its action with Millon’s reagent 
(a solution of mercury nitrate in nitric acid containing nitrous acid) ; 
this gives a white precipitate which, on boiling, becomes intensely red. 
It is poisonous, killing rabbits in doses of 0*5 grm. per kilogram with 
