Strychnia : its source, chemical relations, physiological action (typical and irregular), mode of detection, and methods of treatment in cases of poisoning / by James St Clair Gray.

  • Gray, James St Clair.
Date:
1872
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Strychnia : its source, chemical relations, physiological action (typical and irregular), mode of detection, and methods of treatment in cases of poisoning / by James St Clair Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    19/88 (page 19)
    this peculiar reaction. The representations to which I advert will be foimd iu Dr Guy's Forensic Medicine, pages 543 and 544, figs. 136, 137, and 138. Reducing these groups to their elements, they are seen to consist of a series of hooks or claws closely aggregated together, dense towards the centre, and more loosely bound together at their edges. Crystals or crystalline groups bearing even the most distant resemblance to this form are very rare, so that the reaction is eminently characteristic and well worthy the confidence reposed in it by its proposer. Besides this, Dr Guy recommends the addition to a portion of the substance of a few drops of an aqueous solution of the bichromate of potassium, of strength one to a himdred, which often instantaneously, but always speedily, develops isolated yellow plates, Avhich may be square, oblong, or grouped. For a drawing of these crystals, see Dr Guy's Forensic Medicine, p. 544, fig. 159, which may be compared svith the representation of the residue obtained, by allowing to evaporate spontaneously a solution of bichrome alone of the same strength, to be seen. Ibid., p. 494, fig. 99, while those desh-ous of ftu'ther informa- tion will find it in the paper communicated by Dr Guy to the Pharmaceutical Journal from June to October, 1867. Such are the chemical reactions by which strychnia in the diy state may be recognised. There are, however, a few further processes to which, if the quantity admitted, the substance, might be subjected, thus the solubility of the material in various media might be tried as what proportion dissolves in ether, alcohol, chloroform, bisulphide of carbon, benzole. Then, further, solutions so obtained might be evaporated spontaneously, and the crystalline residue microscopically examined and compared with the crystalline forms assumed by pure strychnia similarly treated. This might also aid in the determination of how much strychnia was present, or approximately at least might guide to an estimation of the relative purity of the sample. Again, a solution in a dilute acid might be evaporated on a microscopic slide, and the crystalline character and form