sions I retired to bed without any of the feeling of mental fatigue which I sometimes experience after prolonged microscopical work.

The other subject of my experiments was in a very different condition. She was a pale, delicate, emaciated woman, and confined to bed by the pain and constitutional disturbance attendant upon the formation of a very large abscess in the right loin. Her pulse was 108 and feeble, and she was restless and unable to sleep. The abscess was opened on November 13, and a pint of pus discharged. The same night I ordered as an anodyne fl. 3ij. of the tincture above described, and directed the dose to be increased each night, provided, as in my own case, no effects should follow. She slept well. On the following night fl. 3iij. were given, and there was no sleep. On the 18th she took fl. zss. at night, but did not sleep well after it. On the 19th fl. zvij. were given, and she had a good night's rest. Having used her supply, the conium was suspended for a few days, and opiates (mxv. to mxxx. tincturæ opii) administered instead. Meanwhile the abscess was closing, the appetite returning, and the health rapidly improving. On December 1st she took fl. 3j., and on the 2nd fl. 3jss., which exhausted my supply. On carefully examining this woman from day to day, and with special reference to the effects of conium, neither Dr. Collie, one of the resident medical officers of the hospital, nor myself, could detect any result. Great relief followed the evacuation of the matter, and her health began to improve directly afterwards, and she was soon convalescent.

Examination of the marc.-In order to make my experiments more satisfactory, I subjected the marc to the following process:-Placing it again in the percolator, I passed a solution of 3j. of caustic potash in fl. viij. of water through it, and subsequently washed it with water until it passed through colourless; fl. xiv. of dark brown fluid, resembling tincture of henbane in depth of colour, were thus procured. I subjected this to distillation, drop by drop, collecting the first ounce and a half separately. I allowed fl. 3vij. more to distil, and set this aside. I then put one-half of the marc (which had been successively exhausted by spirit and solution

of potash) into the retort to the remaining fluid and distilled fl. ziv. more. Having satisfied myself that these three fluids. differed in no respects from each other, they were mixed. The mixture gave all the reactions of a dilute aqueous solution of conia and ammonia. I carefully preserved it, and on December 4 following, I took half a drachm in the morning, and a drachm in the afternoon, and increasing the dose on the following days took a single dose of two fluid ounces on the 9th. No effect followed any of the doses.

The fruit used was a fine specimen. It was clean, and free from admixture with other umbelliferous fruits. The albumen was firm and solid, the commissure convex, the groove indicating the involution of the albumen broad and deep, and the crenations of the ridges well formed-all of which I take to be essential characters of a well-matured fruit. The powder was prepared by means of a fineish hair sieve, and without the application of heat. It evolved a strong heavy mousy odour.

I am informed by Mr. Hemingway that the whole of the conium fruit used in British pharmacy is obtained from Germany, and that the sample used in preparing the tincture employed in the previous investigations was grown near Prague. Doubtless the German fruit is, to say the least, equally potent with that of British growth; and, as far as our present investigations are concerned, the use of the German fruit is the more appropriate, since it was most probably that employed by Geiger in his experiments. He states (Mag. für Pharm. xxxv.) that nine pounds of the dry ripe fruits yield one ounce of conia. Accordingly one ounce of the fruit should yield three grains of conia, and the quantity contained in fl. 3xx. of the tinctura conii fructûs-assuming the fruit to be thoroughly exhausted of the alkaloidwould be 7 grains to 0.375 in fl. 3j. Now continental physicians prescribe conia in doses of of a grain for a child, and to 1 drop for an adult.' Hence fl. 3j. of the tincture would be only a medium dose for an adult-assuming, as I have said, that it contain a quantity of conia equivalent to

1

1 Ann. de Thérap. 1853, p. 73; Archiv. Gén. 4o sér. xxiii. 226. See also Wood and Bache's Disp. United States Pharmacop. 11th ed. p. 295.

part of the fruit employed. It appears therefore that the quantity of fruit employed in the preparation of the tincture is much too small. But even if a much larger quantity were used, it is very doubtful whether the preparation would be an efficacious one, for the active principle, although freely soluble in dilute spirit is in the fruit effectually protected from its action by the horny albumen with which it is associated—a protection which is very inadequately removed by comminution.

In order to prove the quality of the fruit used in the tincture with which my experiments were made, I subjected one ounce, finely powdered, to the following process for the extraction of conia. Having mixed it with an equal bulk of fine sand, I packed it loosely in the percolator, and passed, after previous maceration, alcoholic and aqueous solutions of caustic potash through it, and subsequently alcohol, until it dropped through colourless. By this means, fl. 3x. of a turbid, brownish-green fluid, of the same depth of colour as the tincture of the leaf of the London Pharmacopoeia, was obtained. This was exactly neutralised with sulphuric acid, and the sulphate of potash separated by filtration. The filtrate was placed in a retort, and the whole of the alcohol and the chief bulk of the water distilled off. These distillates were perfectly free, both from ammonia and conia, and also from sulphuric acid. About 3iv. of a blackish-brown syrupy fluid remained in the retort, and to this was added fl. ziv. of aqueous solution of caustic potash, containing sixteen grains of the alkali. The mixture was exposed to a temperature of 248° Fahr., by means of a chloride of calcium bath, and the distillation rapidly conducted. Colourless water and minute drops of equally colourless oily fluid passed over. About fl. 3vj. were obtained in all, and a charred black mass, which, when cold, evolved an intensely acrid and ammoniacal odour, remained in the retort. The distillate contained about two grains of conia, but I was unable to determine its exact weight, for it soon became opaquish, assumed a faint brownish tinge, and began to dissolve in the highly alkaline fluid upon which it floated. This latter assumed a brownish tinge. possessed, but in a much greater degree, the reactions of the

It

distillate from the marc of the tincture formerly described. It formed with iodine a colourless solution, and dissolved sulphur. When heated it became turbid and evolved the intensely acrid fumes of conia under the appearance of a white cloud. As the conia condensed again, it trickled in oily streaks down the sides of the tube. The presence of a little alcohol in the distillate doubtless rendered the conia soluble to this extent.

In operating upon so small a quantity of seed at so high a temperature, the waste of the conia is of course much greater than in experiments upon a large scale, and I believe that I am fully justified in concluding that the fruit operated upon, and used in the preparation of the tincture, possessed the full amount of conia.

The result of these experiments goes far to prove that the tinctura conii fructûs is in all proper medicinal doses, to say the least, an inert preparation. From Geiger's and Christison's experiments it appears that the fruit contains a larger quantity of conia than the other parts of the plant. But the fact that the green fruit contains a much larger quantity than the dry seems to have been overlooked. We know that the active properties of the poppy are more abundant in the circulating juices of the green fruit than in any other part of the plant; and that they diminish in proportion as the capsule becomes dry and hard. It is very probable that this is the case with the fruit of the conium also (see p. 96).

6

II. Tinctura Conii P.L. (Tincture of the dried leaf).-1 obtained two samples of the Tinctura conii (P.L.): Messrs. J. Bell and Co. kindly furnished me with one, which I call "Tincture No. 1;' and Mr. Hemingway prepared for my use another, which I will designate Tincture No. 2.' As I had in view a series of comparative experiments with the tincture of the fruit, No. 2 was prepared in December by exhausting after eight days' maceration in the percolator, zijss. of fine green, strongly smelling, dried leaf (collected the same year, and carefully preserved in a tin canister in a dry place), by the passage of fl. 3xx. of proof spirit. Thus its strength in comparison with the tincture of the P. L. was as 19 to 20; the

London process yielding only fl. 3xix. out of the fl. 3xx. of spirit employed. No. 1 was prepared soon after the leaves were dried, and preserved from access of light. There was no apparent difference in the two preparations. Both possessed an acid reaction; a dark greenish-brown colour, a rank odour, and its corresponding flavour with a nauseous, bitterish taste. On admixture with water both became turbid from the separation of a green resinous matter.

I began my experiments with Tincture No. 2:December 19, at 10.45 A.M., I took 3ij. mixed with a little water, and remained quiet all day.

Dec. 21, at 11.15 A.M., took 3iv., and remained quiet for five or six hours afterwards.

Dec. 22, at 10.45 A.M., I took 3vj., and was afterwards and during the rest of the day actively engaged. Walked about five miles.

Dec. 24, at 11 A.M., took 3j., and sat still conversing with patients for the hour following, and was afterwards actively engaged until midnight, when I retired to bed free from headache or fatigue. Next day I did not take the tincture.

Dec. 26, awoke with a headache, and felt weak and poorly from broken rest, and a sharp attack of diarrhoea during the early morning. At noon I took 3x. of the tincture, and immediately walked out a distance of three miles. No effects followed, neither was there any increase of the headache or sense of debility.

Dec. 28, at 10.45 A.M., took 3xiij. of the tincture, and from half an hour to an hour and half afterwards experienced a slight stimulant effect.

I now began to use Tincture No. 1.

Dec. 29, at 10.30 A.M., I took 3v. On the following day, at 10.30 A.M., 3vij., and sat quiet for an hour and half afterwards.

Dec. 31, at 12.25 A.M. took 3ix. I had previously been sitting in a cold room, and felt very cold, and my pulse was only 60. I pursued my writing at the same temperature, and three-quarters of an hour after taking the conium my pulse was 72, and had increased in force; the stimulant action of the alcohol was manifest.