[626] Heinr. Hellin, Der giftige Eiweisskorper-Abrin u. seine Wirkung auf das Blut. Inaug.-Diss., Dorpat., 1891.
The general effect of these substances, and, above all, the curious fact that a person may acquire by use a certain immunity from otherwise fatal doses is so similar to poisonous products evolved in the system of persons suffering from infectious fevers, that they have excited of late years much interest, and a study of their methods of action will throw light upon many diseased processes.
At present there are no chemical means of detecting the presence of the toxalbumins mentioned. Should they be ever used for criminal purposes, other evidence will have to be obtained.
XI.—Ictrogen.
§ 616. Ictrogen.—Various lupins, e.g., Lupinus luteus, L. angustifolius, L. thermis, L. linifolius, L. hirsutus, contain a substance of which nothing chemically is known, save that it may be extracted by weakly alkaline water, and which has been named “ictrogen”; this must not be confused with the alkaloid of lupins named “lupinine,” a bitter tasting substance. In large doses a nerve poison. Ictrogen has the unusual property of acting much like phosphorus. It causes yellow atrophy of the liver, and produces the following symptoms:—Intense jaundice; at first enlargement of the liver, afterwards contraction; somnolence, fever, paralysis. The urine contains albumen and the constituents of the bile. After death there is found to be parenchymatous degeneration of the heart, kidneys, muscles, and liver. If the animal has suffered for some time the liver may be cirrhotic.
Hitherto the cases of poisoning have been confined to animals. Many thousands of sheep and a few horses and deer have, according to Kobert, died in Germany from eating lupin seeds. Further information upon the active principles of lupins may be obtained by referring to the following treatises:—G. Schneidemuhl, Die lupinen Krankheit der Schafe; Vorträge f. Thierärzte. Ser. 6, Heft. 4, Leipzig, 1883. C. Arnold and G. Schneidemuhl, Vierter Beitrag zur Klarstellung der Ursache u. des Wesens der Lupinose, Luneburg, 1883; Julius Löwenthal, Ueber die physiol. u. toxicol. Wirkungen der Lupinenalkaloide, Inaug.-Diss., Königsberg, 1888.