The non-bacillar nature of abrus-poison : with observations on its chemical and physiological properties / by C.J.H. Warden and L.A. Waddell.

Date:: 1884

Credit: The non-bacillar nature of abrus-poison : with observations on its chemical and physiological properties / by C.J.H. Warden and L.A. Waddell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$66 MODE OF ACTION OF AD11IN. then injected into chickens. The pepsin used in these experi- ments was found to be fairly well up to the British Pharma- copoeia standard of activity, where two grains of pepsin are stated to dissolve 100 grains of coagulated egg-albumin. _ Exp. LXVIL—Six grains of the freshly-prepared moist abrin from which the alcohol had been entirely driven off were dissolved in about { oz. of distilled water. To this were added three grains of pepsin with 6'minims of dilute hydrochloric acid, and the whole digested for six hours at a temperature of 38° Cent. This solution was then filtered, the filtrate being a clear, limpid, and almost colourless fluid, which gave a scanty whito precipitate with absolute alcohol, and on boiling deposited no precipitate, showing that the proteid had apparently become converted into a peptone. Of this peptone solution 25 minims, representing about ]§ grains of moist abrin, were injected into a healthy chicken. The chicken presented no symptoms till the following day. It died 53 hours from the time of adminis- tration of the injection with all the usual symptoms of abrus-poisoning. Exp. LXVIII.—The previous experiment was repealed on another chicken, which died 60 hours after the administration of the injection. As the abrin-peptone proved fatal in both these experiments, it became necessary to ascertain what the effect of a bypodermic injection of pepsin by itself might be. In the following experi- ment twice the amount of pepsin which had been used in the two foregoing experiments was injected subcutaneously into a chicken without any positive result. Exp. LXIX.—Three grains of pepsin dissolved in 25 minims of distilled water to which three minims of dilute hydrochloric acid had been added were injected into a chicken. No result. From these experiments it would appear that the peptone of abrus-albmnin is poisonous, although very much less active than abrin itself. It becomes therefore difficult to reconcile these results with the acknowledged innocuousness of the seeds when taken by the mouth. For on introduction into the stomach a peptone will be formed, and this readily becoming absorbed ought to prove poisonous according to the foregoing experiments. But it is just possible that in these experiments a true peptone was not really formed, as the albumin was not presented to the action of the pepsine in a coagulated form—the failure of the resulting filtrate to give a precipitate on boiling being probably due to the con- version of the abrin into an acid albuminate by the action of the hydrochloric acid. And the acid albuminate of abrin, as we have seen, is poisonous.$