INFLUENCE  OF  HYPODERMIC  INJECTION,  ETC.  43 
a  blank.  In  no  one  instance  before  this  date  had  strychnia  been 
obtained  from  the  tissues  of  the  corpse,  and,  in  the  greater  num- 
ber of  cases,  it  had  not  even  been  found  in  its  unabsorbed  state 
in  the  stomach. 
With  respect,  therefore,  to  the  separation  of  the  vegetable 
poisons  from  the  blood  and  tissues,  the  results  are  very  unsatis- 
factory. We  look  in  vain  in  the  treatises  of  Orfila,  Kopp, 
Christison,  and  in  the  more  recent  works  of  Gaultier,  Flandin, 
Casper,  Otto  of  Braunschweig,  and  Bocker,  for  any  instance 
in  which  they  claim  absorbed  strychnia  to  have  been  detected 
either  in  the  human  being  or  in  animals ;  and,  in  this  particular, 
strychnia  is  but  a  type,  for  the  same  remarks  hold  good  of  the 
other  alkaloids. 
Dr.  Harley,  of  University  College,  examined  the  blood  of  a 
dog  killed  by  the  j2  of  a  grain  of  acetate  of  strychnia  injected 
into  the  jugular  vein.  The  blood,  after  the  death  of  the  dog, 
gave  no  evidence  of  strychnia.  Mr.  Horsely,  of  Cheltenham, 
examined  the  blood  and  tissues  of  a  dog  which  he  poisoned  with 
two  grains  of  strychnia,  and  could  not  detect  its  presence.  Dr. 
De  Vry,  of  Rotterdam,  poisoned  a  dog  with  nitrate  of  strychnia, 
introduced  into  a  wound,  and,  after  its  death,  he  examined  four 
ounces  of  blood,  but  not  the  least  trace  of  strychnia  was 
detected.  In  another  case,  in  which  a  dog  was  poisoned  in  four 
days  by  half  a  grain  of  strychnia  in  divided  doses,  the  chemical 
analysis  led  to  a  negative  conclusion,  not  only  in  the  blood  and 
tissues,  but  in  all  parts  of  the  body.  Dr.  Crawcour,  of  New 
Orleans,  gave  a  rabbit  half  a  grain  of  strychnia  ;  the  animal 
died  in  half  an  hour.  No  trace  of  the  poison  was  found  in  any 
part  of  the  body.  In  a  case  of  poisoning  which  occurred  to  Dr. 
Geoghegan,  of  Dublin,  in  1856,  thirty  ounces  of  urine,  which  had 
passed  the  patient  from  the  fifth  to  the  thirty-first  hour,  when 
carefully  analyzed,  did  not  yield  any  trace  of  strychnia.  A  case 
of  great  bearing  upon  this  subject  occurred  to  Mr.  Wilkins,  of 
Newport,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  in  February,  1857.  A  gentle- 
man died  in  six  hours  after  taking  about  three  grains  of 
strychnia  for  the  purpose  of  self-destruction.  The  long  period 
he  survived  was  most  favorable  for  the  diffusion  and  deposition 
of  the  poison.    The  blood  and  heart  were  examined  by  Dr. 
