DETECTING  THE  ORGANIC  ALKALOIDS  IN  CASES  OF  POISONING.  49 
OBSERVATIONS  UPON  A  GENERAL  METHOD  FOR  DETECTING 
THE  ORGANIC  ALKALOIDS  IN  CASES  OF  POISONING. 
By  Professor  Si  as,  of  Brussels. 
Whatever  certain  authors  may  have  said  on  the  subject,  it  is 
possible  to  discover  in  a  suspected  liquid  all  the  alkaloids,  in  what- 
ever state  they  may  be.  I  am  quite  convinced  that  every  Chemist 
who  has  kept  up  his  knowledge  as  to  analysis,  will  not  only 
succeed  in  detecting  their  presence,  but  even  in  determining  the 
nature  of  that  of  bodies,  the  properties  of  which  have  been  suitably 
studied.  Thus  he  will  be  able  to  discover  conia,  nicotine,  aniline, 
picoline,petinine,  morphine,  codeine,  narcotine, strychnine,  brucine, 
veratrine,  colchicine,  delphine,  emetine,  solanine,  aconitine, 
atropine,  and  hyoscyamine.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  the 
chemical  study  of  all  these  alkaloids  has  been  sufficiently  well 
made  to  enable  the  experimenter  who  detects  one  of  them  to  know 
it  immediately,  and  affirm  that  it  is  such  an  alkaloid,  and  not  such 
another.  Nevertheless,  in  those  even  which  he  cannot  positively 
determine  or  specify,  he  may  be  able  to  say  that  it  belongs  to  such 
a  family  of  vegetables — the  Solanaceaa,  for  example.  In  a  case 
of  poisoning  by  such  agents,  even  this  will  be  of  much  importance. 
The  method  which  I  now  propose  for  detecting  the  alkaloids  in 
suspected  matters,  is  nearly  the  same  as  that  employed  for  extract- 
ing those  bodies  from  the  vegetables  which  contain  them.  The 
only  difference  consists  in  the  manner  of  setting  them  free,  and  of 
presenting  them  to  the  action  of  solvents.  We  know  that  the 
alkaloids  form  acid  salts,  which  are  equally  soluble  in  water  and 
alcohol ;  we  know  also  that  a  solution  of  these  acid  salts  can  be 
decomposed  so  that  the  base  set  at  liberty  remains  either  momen- 
tarily or  permanently  in  solution  in  the  liquid.  J  have  observed 
that  ali  the  solid  and  fixed  alkaloids  above  enumerated,  when 
miintamed  in  a  free  state  and  in  solution  in  a  liquid,  can  be  taken 
up  by  ether  when  this  solvent  is  in  sufficient  quantity.  Thus,  to 
extract  an  alkaloid  from  a  suspected  substance,  the  only  problem 
to  resolve  consists  in  separating,  by  the  aid  of  simple  means,  the 
foreign  matters,  and  then  to  find  a  base  which,  in  rendering  the 
alkaloid  free,  retains  it  in  solution,  in  order  that  the  ether  may  ex- 
tract it  from  the  liquid.  Successive  treatment  by  water  and  alcohol 
of  different  degrees  of  concentration,  suffices  for  separating  the 
