DETECTION  OF  STRYCHNINE  IN  CASES  OF  POISONING.  267 
[Mr.  Squire  has  notified,  in  letters  to  the  Lancet  and  Medical 
Gazette,  the  existence  of  a  spurious  preparation  of  Pepsine,  for 
distinguishing  which  he  gives  the  following  tests : — 
True  Pepsine.  Test.  False  Pepsine. 
^(Peptat^   Acetate  of  Lead         Slight  cloudiness. 
Abundant  precipitate  {   Tannin   Ditto. 
(Tannate  of  Pepsine)  \ 
Precipitates  the      j   Alcohol   No  effect. 
Pepsine  J 
The  solution  of  true  Pepsine  is  strongly  acid  to  litmus,  whilst 
the  false  is  only  so  in  a  slight  degree ;  but,  more  than  all,  M. 
Boudault's  preparation  does  what  it  professes  to  do  :  fifteen 
grains  digests  its  drachm  of  dried  fibrin,  while  the  spurious  com- 
pound is  entirely  destitute  of  this  property. — Lancet. 
The  most  serious  contamination  of  Pepsine  is  that  contained 
in  No.  3,  namely,  strychnia !  For  what  purpose  this  is  intro- 
duced we  cannot  imagine ;  but  the  circumstance  of  keeping  such 
company  is  likely  to  cause  alarm,  and  thus  to  create  a  prejudice 
unfavorable  to  the  general  introduction  of  Pepsine  into  dyspeptic 
society. — Ed.  Pharm.  Journ.]. — Lon.  Pharm.  Jour.,  March  2, 
1857. 
ON  THE  DETECTION  OF  STRYCHNINE  IN  CASES  OF  POISONING. 
By  Dr.  J.  E.  De  Vry,  Lecturer  on  Chemistry;  and  E.  A.  Van  Der  Burg, 
Pharmaceutical  Chemist  of  the  Rotterdam  Hospital. 
In  the  month  of  September,  1856,  we  were  required  by  the 
Juge  &  Instruction  to  make  a  chemical  investigation  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  body  of  a  man,  on  the  cause  of  whose  death  there 
was  some  suspicion  of  poisoning.  The  man  having  been  brought 
to  the  hospital  in  a  tetanic  state,  we  were  naturally  induced  to 
try  to  find  strychnine  in  the  contents  of  the  body ;  but  neither 
this  nor  any  other  poison  was  to  be  found,  so  that  the  death  of 
this  man  remained  unexplained. 
The  discordant  opinions  of  several  chemists  in  the  famous  trial 
of  Palmer,  made  it  necessary,  for  our  own  persuasion  of  the 
truth,  to  institute  a  series  of  experiments,  to  make  out : — 1st. 
The  sensibility  of  the  principal  reagents  on  strychnine;  2nd. 
The  possibility  of  detecting  strychnine  with  these  reagents,  if 
the  strychnine  is  mixed  with  animal  substances  ;  3rd.  If  strych- 
