296 
POISONING BY VEGETABLES. 
cipitate may be collected without loss, which is of great im- 
portance in delicate researches like the present.* 
In the second part of the memoir, the author has applied 
the preceding researches to the study of opium, or rather one 
of its immediate principles, morphine. He has given various 
compounds of this base to several species of animals, cats, 
dogs, rabbits, birds, and a monkey. 
An important fact resulting from these experiments is, 
that morphine is tolerated in enormous doses by the above 
animals. Is not this poisonous base decomposed, neutral- 
ized by the gastric fluids, under the influence of the vital 
force ? It is known, on the one band, that morphine is de- 
composed by certain powerful acids, e. g. nitric acid ; the 
author has shown, on the other hand, that the same decom- 
position is produced by the action of a chloride or alkaline 
hypochlorite and a weak acid; the chloride of lime and the 
hypochlorite of soda produce this effect when acetic, oxalic 
and tartaric acids, &c, are present or act as immediate 
agents. The result of the latter decomposition furnishes a 
new reaction, which must be added to the most character- 
istic chemimal reactions of the alkaline vegetable bases. 
Thus morphine, under these circumstances, yields a fine yel- 
low colour ; narcotine, a red colour; brucine, a] rose-red 
colour ; whilst strychnine undergoes no change. There is 
nothing, therefore, which should occasion surprise in the fact, 
which the author thinks he has established by direct expe- 
riments, viz. that morphine may be decomposed or burnt 
during the process of digestion or the act of respiration. 
But, admitting this to be the case, it is not less true, that, 
according to the doses taken, the whole of the morphine is 
not suddenly transformed or destroyed, either in the diges- 
tive canal or in the torrent of the circulation. The author 
has found this poisonous substance in the faeces of the ani- 
mals; also in their urine, and even in their internal viscera. 
* See Traite des Poisons, &c, p. 397. 
