OBSERVATIONS ON SASSY BARK. 
309 
This substance is very soluble in alcohol, soluble in ether and 
chloroform, and but slightly soluble in water. Its alcoholic solution 
slowly restores the color of reddened litmus, but when heated with 
very dilute hydrochloric acid, it was not dissolved. Its solution in 
boiling w r ater afforded a curdy precipitate with tannic acid. When 
heated to redness on glass or platina, a minute ash of white color 
remains, which is alkaline in its action on moist reddened litmus. 
It has little if any odor or taste, and a grain of it given to a cat, 
produced no poisonous effect, and consequently it is not the active 
principle. An analogous experiment of Mr. Santos (Am. Jour. 
Pharm. vol. xxi. p. 100,) yielded him « a few grains of a crystal- 
line matter, having a white colour and nauseating taste," which the 
paragraph following states was poisonous when tried on animals. 
200 grains of the same alcoholic extract was triturated with 
half a pint of water, filtered, and the clear reddish brown solution 
filtered and refiltered through a layer of purified animal charcoal, 
previously boiled in alcohol. The charcoal was then washed, dried, 
treated with boiling alcohol, and this evaporated. A reddish 
brown amorphous residue was left without any indications of cry- 
stals, as obtained by Mr. Santos when a weak tincture was thus 
treated. 
5000 grains of the bark in powder was exhausted with cold 
water by maceration and displacement, the coloured astringent 
infusion precipitated with subacetate of lead, and the excess of 
lead removed from the colourless liquid by sulphuric acid care- 
fully added. The filtered liquid was evaporated on a water bath; 
before acquiring a syrupy consistence tufts of crystals separated, 
which were removed and set aside. The evaporation was con- 
tinued and the residue treated with boiling alcohol, which on 
evaporation yielded a brownish, syrupy, deliquescent substance, 
exhibiting no disposition to crystallize. A portion of this given 
to a cat produced no symptoms of poisoning. 
The crystalline matter which consists of sulphate of lime and 
an organic salt of lime, has not been sufficiently examined. 
Prom the foregoing observations it is apparent that neither of 
the substances described is the active principle. I am convinced 
that when isolated it will be found to possess great activity, as three 
grains of the aqueous extract of sassy, given to a cat, caused vio- 
lent poisonous symptoms, great prostration, frothing at the mouth, 
