ly to cattle. In
man it produces abdominal pain with diarrhoea and vomiting; dilated
pupils, slow pulse, and cyanosis; delirium, insensibility, and
convulsions. The post-mortem appearances are not characteristic, but the
stomach and intestines should be examined for portions of the plant.

=Calabar Bean or Physostigma.=--The bean of _Physostigma venenosum_
contains the alkaloid physostigmine or eserine, with the antagonistic
alkaloid calabarine.

_Symptoms._--Vomiting, giddiness, irregular cardiac action, contraction
of the pupils, paralysis of lower extremities, and death from asphyxia.

_Treatment._--Emetics; hypodermic injection of 1/50 grain sulphate of
atropine, repeated if necessary.

_Method of Extraction from the Stomach._--Use Stas-Otto process.

_Test._--The contraction of the pupil which it causes.

XL.--TOBACCO AND LOBELIA

=Tobacco.=--_Nicotiana tabacum_ owes its poisonous properties to its
alkaloid nicotine, a volatile, oily, amber-coloured liquid, with an
acrid taste and ethereal odour; soluble in water, alcohol, ether, and
chloroform. The drug has an intense depressant action on the heart and
respiratory centre.

_Symptoms._--Giddiness, fainting, nausea, and vomiting, with syncope,
muscular tremors, stupor, stertorous breathing, and insensible pupil.
Death has occurred after seventeen or eighteen pipes at a sitting.

_Post-Mortem Appearances._--Not uniform or characteristic. General
relaxed condition of muscles; engorgement of cerebral and pulmonary
vessels. Congestion of gastric mucous membrane.

_Treatment._--Emetics, stimulants, hypodermic injection of 1/25 grain of
strychnine. Warmth to the surface by hot bottles, hot blankets.

_Method of Extraction from the Stomach._--Digest the contents of the
stomach in cold distilled water and _very dilute_ sulphuric acid;
strain, filter, and press residue. Evaporate the filtrate to half its
bulk, digest with alcohol, and evaporate alcohol off in a water-bath.
Dissolve residue (sulphate of nicotine) in water, and make solution
alkaline with potash; then shake with ether in a test-tube. Remove ether
and allow it slowly to evaporate. Test resulting alkaloid.

_Tests._--No change of colour with the mineral acids. White deposit with
corrosive sublimate. Sulphuric acid and bichromate of potassium give a
green colour, oxide of chromium. Precipitate with bichloride of platinum
and with carbazotic acid.

=Lobelia Inflata= (Indian Tobacco).--Much u