The Bulletin 
37 
On the afternoon of the 26tli another animal, No. 6, was placed in 
this cage, was given 16 to 20 c.c. daily in two feeds and died on August 
14. No. 6 remained quite normal throughout this entire period except 
for two or three days prior to death. 
Experiment 19 .—In this experiment the expressed sap was reduced 
to dryness over a water hath, the water in which was kept boiling. On 
July 11 one animal was placed on this experiment, and given daily the 
equivalent of 25 to 30 c.c. of freshly expressed juice. No ill effects had 
appeared on July 20, when feeding was discontinued. 
This animal along with two others was again placed on the experi¬ 
ment on July 26. Each was given daily quantities equivalent to 25 or 
30 c.c. of fresh sap. Since no ill effects had appeared by August 14, 
the feeding was discontinued. When it is remembered that the sap was 
toxic before it was desiccated and that each animal had received the 
equivalent of many times more of fresh juice than was necessary to 
produce death, it is evident that desiccation at high temperature either 
destroys the toxicity or that the active principle had been volatilized. 
Experiment 20 .—This experiment was designed to show whether a 
toxic volatile principle is present in the sap of white snakeroot. Ac¬ 
cordingly, 5,800 c.c. of expressed sap were distilled in a flask over an 
open flame. A turbid distillate was collected which contained a very 
pungent volatile oil. This distillate was fed to three guinea pigs be¬ 
ginning August 14 and concluding August 29. No ill effects whatso¬ 
ever were apparent. The materials which remained after distillation 
were fed to ewe 31 and have been reported as Experiment 11 along with 
the feeding experiments with these animals. 
Experiment 21 .—The expressed sap fed to the three animals on this 
experiment had been kept for forty-eight hours on a water bath main¬ 
tained at 55 to 60 degrees C. This temperature was found to be suffi¬ 
cient to drive off the volatile oil and was believed to be hot enough to 
prevent fermentation yet not a sufficient degree of heat to change the 
chemical constitution of the plant juice. The feeding of two animals, 
thrice daily, was commenced at noon on July 30 and of another on 
August 3. One of the first two was observed to be sick on August 2. 
This animal died on the afternoon of August 4. The other two con¬ 
tinued to eat their food, however, and were merely less active than 
normal individuals throughout the remainder of the time that they 
were maintained on this product or until August 23. 
