On animal alkaloids : the ptomaines, leucomaines, and extractives in their pathological relations ... / by Sir William Aitken.

  • William Aitken
Date:
1887
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On animal alkaloids : the ptomaines, leucomaines, and extractives in their pathological relations ... / by Sir William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    56/150 (page 38)
    In Germany the typical condition is known by the name of botulism, a form of poisoning which results from the ingestion of putrefying meats. Such ailments of flesh or meat origin are in reality the products of dead animal matter. So long as the meat is fresh it may be wholesome ; but if in process of putrefaction it ceases to be so, both Selmi and Gautier have shown that it is by reason of such putre- fying meats containing cadaveric alkaloids—the pto- maines —that it becomes deleterious. Further, when a solution of peptone is treated with potash and ether, it yields a body which appears to be a volatile alkaloid, and if j)utrid peptone is treated in the same way a solid non-volatile alkaloid is obtained.* But ptomaines are not only found in dead bodies, they are also found in the intestines by the decomposi- tion of parts of its contents. They have been found in large quantities by Bouchard, both in the stools of persons suflfering from diarrhoea or typhoid fever, and in normal faeces. They appeared to be absorbed by the intestine into the blood, and excreted by the urine, (see p. 54). Thus, they have been found by Bouchard in the urine, both in health and disease, and Bocci has shown that the human urine has a paralysing action on frogs hke that of curare or of the ]3tomames, which Mosso and Guareschi have obtained from putrefied fibrine or brain.f Some time ago Dr. L. Brunton pointed out the resemblance between the languor and weakness which occur in many cases of indigestion, and the symptoms of poisoning by curare, and drew * Tanret, Comptes Rendus, scii., 1163, quoted by Brunton, he. cit., p. 351. t Dr. L. Brunton, loc. cit., p. 351.