212     INFLUENCE  OF  MORPHIA  IN  DISGUISING  STRYCHNIA, 
from  it;  ground  in  a  certain  way  it  could  easily  be  adulterated, 
one-half  the  oil  in  the  other  half  being  abundantly  sufficient  to 
give  the  whole  an  oily  appearance.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you 
put  some,  ground  dry,  in  a  warm  mortar  and  rub  it,  you  will 
soon  "  raise  "  the  oil  and  find  it  there. 
By  grinding  the  article  dry  it  can  be  ground  much  finer,  and, 
if  necessary,  sifted  through  a  tolerable  fine  sieve,  rejecting  the 
chalF  or  hull  of  the  seed,  and  it  will  keep  much  longer  and 
better;  when  the  oil  is  "  raised"  it  will  heat,  mould  and  be- 
come spoiled,  especially  in  warm  weather. 
The  same  difficulty  of  "  raising  "  the  oil  occurs  in  grinding 
mustard  seed,  to  prevent  which  is  a  nice  and  delicate  operation ; 
many  who  attempt  it  fail,  lose  one-half  the  article,  sometimes 
more,  and  the  portion  they  succeed  in  grinding  is  of  a  coarse 
and  oily  nature ;  after  the  oil  is  once  raised  it  is  in  vain  to  at- 
tempt any  further  grinding  or  sifting  of  it. 
ON  THE  DETECTION  OF  STRYCHNIA  AS  A  POISON,  AND  ON  THE 
INFLUENCE  OF  MORPHIA  IN  DISGUISING  THE  USUAL  COLOR- 
TEST. 
By  John  J.  Reese,  M.  D.,  of  Philadelphia. 
[Note. — This  interesting  paper,  originally  published  in  the  American 
Journal  of  the  Medical  Sciences  for  October,  1861,  is  too  long  for  insertion 
in  this  Journal,  yet  the  importance  of  the  subject  as  presented  by  the 
author,  (see  page  225),  relating  to  morphia,  together  with  the  fact  that 
Professor  Thomas  has  re-investigated  the  influence  of  morphia  in  mo- 
difying the  color-test  of  strychnia,  leads  us  to  attempt  an  abridgement 
of  the  more  important  parts  of  the  paper  of  Dr.  Reese.  It  would  have 
been  interesting  if  Dr.  Reese  had  sought,  more  elaborately,  for  morphia 
in  the  cases  where  his  results  refused  to  respond  to  the  test  for  strychnia. 
The  point  of  Dr.  Thomas'  essay  seems  to  be  the  neat  manner  in  which,  by 
the  use  of  appropriate  solvents,  he  isolates  the  strychnia  from  the  morphia, 
and  thus  avoids  its  interference  in  applying  the  test.  The  well-known 
precision  of  Dr.  Reese  precludes  the  idea  of  his  being  mistaken,  and 
hence  we  must  attribute  the  failure  to  isolate  and  detect  the  strychnia  in 
experiment  3d,  either  to  the  actual  interference  of  morphia,  to  some  pecu- 
liarity of  the  process  of  Staas'  in  its  relation  to  morphia,  or  to  some  other 
overlooked  interference. — Ed.  Amer.  Jour.  Pharm.] 
The  progressive  increase  in  the  number  of  deaths  within  the 
last  few  years,  occasioned  by  strychnia,  used  either  for  homici- 
