The symptoms produced are pain, heaviness of the limbs, faintness, somnolence, dilatation of the pupil, albuminuria, convulsions, lock-jaw, and collapse. In animals there have also been noticed salivation, amaurosis, unsteady gait, dragging of the hind legs, dyspnœa, and paralysis of the breathing centres. The post-mortem appearances which have been found are as follows:—Redness and swelling with hæmorrhagic spots of the mucous membranes of the stomach and intestines; acute œdema of the brain and spinal cord with petechia in the meninges; the kidneys inflamed, the liver and spleen congested, and the lungs œdematous.
There is no characteristic reaction for male fern; the research most likely to be successful is to attempt to separate from an ethereal extract filicic acid, and to decompose it into butyric acid and phloroglucin; the latter tinges red a pine splinter moistened with hydrochloric acid.
PART VII.—POISONS DERIVED FROM LIVING OR DEAD ANIMAL SUBSTANCES.
DIVISION I.—POISONS SECRETED BY LIVING ANIMALS.
I.—Poisonous Amphibia.
§ 623. The glands of the skin of certain amphibia possess a secretion that is poisonous; the animal is unable to empty the poison glands by any voluntary act, but the secretion can readily be obtained by pressure. Zalesky found the juice in the skin glands of the Salamandra maculosa, milky, alkaline in reaction, and bitter in taste. He isolated from it an organic base, which he named Salamandrine (C34H60N2O5), it is soluble in water and in alcohol, and forms salts. Salamandrine is a strong poison; injected subcutaneously into rabbits it causes shivering, epileptiform convulsions, and salivation; then tetanus, followed by oppressed respiration, dilated pupils, and anæsthesia. Death occurs after a kind of paralytic state. When given to dogs, it causes vomiting. In frogs, tetanus occurs first and then paralysis—the result of all the experiments being that salamandrine acts on the brain and spinal cord, leaving the heart and muscular substance unaffected. A similar secretion obtained from the water salamander (Triton cristatus), causes, according to Vulpian, the death of dogs in from three to eighteen hours; the symptoms being progressive weakness, slowing of the respiration, and depression of the heart’s action.