Remarks on Gastro-Intestinal Mycosis, Caused by the Smaller Fungi or Moulds
Authors: J. B. Curgenven
Journal: BMJ (1884)

obtaine(d ptomaine-reactions froii peptones prepared by acting on egg-albuimen with gastric jtice ; but the base could not be separated.The extracts, nievertheless, were poisonous.From a ferimented nmagma of horseflesh in water, he obtainedl the lydrochloride of a base, C H14 N2, crys- tallising in needles ; but he was unable to isolate the base itself from its salt.Doses of seven or eight gr'ains of the hydrochloric were only feebly toxic to rabbits.The mother-liqnid from which the salt crys- tallised was, lowever, mnore poisonous, and is stated to have contained the salt of a poisoniouis base, Cv H,, N, isomeric wNith piperidine.E. and A. Salkowsky (Bein7.Ber., Band xvi, pp.119, 1798) ob- tained fiom putrid fleslh anid fibrin a base which they analysed, and to which they assign the formuila C, HI 1 NO2 ; but it was not poisonIouIs, an(l is probably not a ptomaine, but an amide of valeric acid.The labours of Giuareschi anid Mosso (Archiv.Ital.de Biologie, 1883) are most important, teniding to discredit much of the previous work done in this field, and to condemni Dragendorffs mnethod for separating the alkaloids in inedico-legal analyses.They find that commercial alcohols are seldom so pure as not to conitain bodies reacting like alkaloids; that commercial ether and chloroform nieed purification; aiid that ordiniary amyl-alcohol and benzene contain pyiidine.All ex- periments made with unpurified reagents are hence necessarily value- less.This circumstance may, perhaps, serve to explaini the differences between observers, some of whom have been able, and othels unable, to obtaiin similar resuilts when working with like materials.From so muclh as eighty pounds of putrid human brains, only insignificant quiantities of ptomaines were obtained-too small for analysis; and these, in doses of one-fifth grain to five grains, given to frogs subcutaneously, produced effects like curare, though it requiredl the larger of tke above doses to kill the aniinal.Experiments made with guinea-pigs coni- vinced the authors that the ptomaine of human brains could not be confounded with aniy known poison in toxicological investigations by its effects upon animals.From the putrefaction of eniormotis quantities of fibrin, there resuilted a base, with alkaloidal reactions, and forming (louble platinum and gold salts.The composition of this base is represented by the fornmula, C,, HI,, N, orC, H,, N.The discrepancies in the analytical results are not satisfactory.On frogs and birds, the extracts contaiining this ptomaine acted like that obtained from putrid brains.Moreover, fresh brains yielded to Guareschi and Mosso, by the Otto-Stas method, small residues givinig the general reactions of alkaloids.Beef, too, yielded minute residues with similar reactionis.Fresh materials yielded almost no ptomaines.Dragendorff's method of extracting the alkaloids, in which dilulte sul- phuric acid is used as the solvent, resulted in more alkaloidal extracts than the Otto-Stas niethiod; and there is no doubt that the method of Dragendorf imanufactures, so to speak, alkaloids.Coppola (az-.Clin.Ital., vol.xii, pp.11, 511) also has confirmedI these results.He found that fiesh dog's blood extracted by Dragendorf's method yielded abunidant alkaloidal reactions; not so wIhen extractedI by chloroform.The large quantities of putrid material required to be operated on- often one or two hundredweight-to obtain ponderable quantities of a ptomaine, anid the small toxicity of the substances thus obtained, except wheni employed in large doses, show that the probability of a ptomaine being mistaken for a vegetable alkaloid by a careful worker according to the Otto-Stas method, is remote.