406 
The  Ptomaines. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
\    August,  1883, 
the  ptomaines  are  met  with,  in  a  minimum  proportion  it  is  true,  in  the 
different  liquids  and  humors  of  the  normal  economy,  blood,  bile,  saliva, 
urine,  and  muscular  juice,  and  Gautier  believes  to  be  able  to  attribute 
the  appearance  of  certain  functional  difficulties,  as  for  example  the 
epileptic  symptoms  of  uraemia,  either  to  an  insufficient  elimination  of 
these  principles  thus  regarded  as  necessary  waste  products  of  living 
cells,  or  to  an  exaggeration  of  their  formation  which  then  becomes 
pathological.  He  has  likewise  observed  bonds  of  relationship  suffi- 
ciently intimate  between  these  poisons  and  the  toxic  principles  of  the 
venom  secreted  by  some  species  of  animals,  serpents  or  others,  or  those 
poisonous  fungi  and  especially  muscarine,  which,  moreover,  has  been 
obtained  by  the  oxidation  of  neurine  from  the  yolk  of  egg,  isomeric 
with  the  neurine  of  nerve  tissue  and  with  the  choline  of  the  bile. 
In  the  numerous  works  relating  to  the  ptomaines,  indications  are 
nowhere  to  be  found  of  tlie  quantity  of  animal  poison  which  a  definite 
weight  of  organic  material  in  a  state  of  putrefaction  is  capable  of 
producing;  and  it  appears  constant,  at  least  our  personal  researches 
authorize  us  to  believe,  that  their  production  always  takes  place  in  an 
infinitesimal  quantity  compared  with  that  of  the  material  of  their 
origin. 
In  accordance  with  their  deportment  in  the  presence  of  the  reagents 
employed  for  distinguishing  the  vegetable  alkaloids  from  each  other, 
the  ptomaines  appear  to  be  multiples,  and  to  vary  in  their  nature  with 
the  time  of  their  appearance  after  death.  But  their  physical  form 
which  appears,  at  least  up  to  the  present  time,  to  be  amorphous,  or  in 
every  case  not  distinctly  crystallized  (R.  Maly,  in  his  journal,  speaks 
of  a  residue  having  a  crystalline  aspect,  but  does  not  indicate  at  all 
whether  these  crystals  are  definable),  has  not  permitted  of  their  direct 
purification,  and  it  was  only  in  operating  upon  crystallizable  salts, 
chlorides,  carbonates  and  sulphates,  that  A.  Gautier  and  Etard  have 
succeeded  in  ^^reparing  two  in  a  sufficient  state  of  purity  for  permitting 
a  precise  study.  The  ptomaines  obtained  in  each  particular  case  have 
also  special  chemical  characters,' even  though  they  be  less  distinctly 
determined,  and  if  there  is  a  certain  exaggeration  in  the  pretension  of 
identifying  a  ptomaine  Avith  another  product  recovered  under  different 
circumstances. 
It  is  a  fact  which  is  constantly  verified  in  practice,  and  which  may 
be  a  source  of  disappointment  for  the  expert  charged  with  a  medico- 
legal investigation ;  that  is,  the  extreme  difficulty  which  is  experienced 
