44  INFLUENCE  OF  HYPODERMIC  INJECTION,  ETC. 
Taylor  and  Mr.  Scanlan,  portions  of  the  liver  and  lungs  were 
examined  by  Dr.  Christison  and  Dr.  Douglass  Maclagan,  of 
Edinburgh,  and  one  kidney  was  examined  by  Dr.  Geoghegan,  of 
Dublin.  The  result  was  no  trace  of  absorbed  strychnia  was 
detected  in  any  one  part.  In  reference  to  the  detection  of  other 
alkaloids  in  an  absorbed  state,  there  is  an  absence  of  facts. 
That  they  enter  the  blood  by  absorption  is  placed  beyond  a 
doubt ;  but  whether,  when  there,  they  are  partially  changed,  or 
deposited  unchanged  in  the  organs,  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily 
determined  by  experiment.  Dr.  De  Vry  has  made  recently  ex- 
periments on  the  alkaloids,  and  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that 
that  part  of  the  alkaloid  which  acts  mortally  is  decomposed  in 
the  living  body.  The  examination  of  a  large  number  of  cases 
in  the  human  subject  can  alone  determine  perfectly  this  most 
important  point  in  toxicology. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  we  are  absolutely  certain  of  a  failure  in 
attempting  to  detect  the  poisonous  alkaloid  atropia  in  the  blood, 
if  administered  by  hypodermic  injection,  as  it  would  not  require 
more  than  one-half  a  grain  to  prove  fatal.  Analytical  chemistry, 
which  has,  up  to  this  time,  occupied  so  prominent  a  position,  and 
been  so  ably  associated  with  forensic  medicine,  is  now  perfectly 
powerless.  She  cannot  solve  this  problem.  There  may  come  a 
time  when  more  accurate  methods  and  more  delicate  reagents 
may  lead  us  to  a  satisfactory  solution  of  it.  Heretofore  she  has 
been  the  Nemesis  which  pursued,  with  outstretched,  grasping 
hand,  the  murderer.  That  hand  has  been  paralyzed  by  this  bold 
application  of  principles  of  chemical  physiology  in  the  treatment 
of  disease.  The  only  means  now  of  detection  will  lie  in  the 
testimony  of  the  physician  of  the  symptoms  observed  by  him  at 
the  bedside  of  the  dying  person. 
Synthesis  is  far  ahead  of  analysis,  and  we  must  admit  that 
this  is  a  problem  of  great  importance,  and  to  which  the  attention 
of  toxicologists  should  be  turned.  For  the  present  we  must 
say,  as  we  stand  groping  on  the  confines  of  mortality,  .and 
straining  our  powers  to  discover  in  the  broad,  measureless 
eternity  some  means  of  controlling  the  moral  effect  of  this  fact, 
and  some  law  which  may  lead  us  to  processes  of  detection, 
that  just  now  we  realize  how  helpless  the  human  mind  is,  how 
