It is certainly most important that druggists and their employers should possess a sufficient knowledge of chemical tests to enable them to detect sophistications. I propose to give hereafter the details of examinations of adulterated medicines and the simplest methods I can devise for the detection of such adulterations, and I trust others beside myself will turn their attention toward a subject so fraught with interest to the Pharmaceutist.
ON WOORARA. A NOTE READ TO THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, BY M. U. BERNARD, IN HIS OWN NAME, AND THAT OF M. PELOUZE.
Woorara is a violent poison, prepared by some of the tribes inhabiting the forests bordering the Upper Oronoco, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon.
Although the existence of this poison has been long known, very vague notions are still entertained regarding its component parts. Amongst the savages who sell or barter it, its preparation remains secret; and has only been made known through their priests or sorcerers. According to Humboldt, woorara is simply a watery extract of a creeper, belonging to the genus Strychnia. According to M. M. Boussingault and Roulin, it contains a poisonous substance, analagous to a vegetable alkali, woorarine. The information given us by M. Houdet, differs from that of M. Humboldt only in this respect, that he observes, before the extract is quite dry, the Indians of Messaya pour on it a few drops of the venom gathered from the glands of the most venomous serpents. This last circumstance is important, as we shall see that the physiological effects of woorara must {78} cause us to regard its mode of action as entirely analogous to that of venoms.
Woorara is a solid extract, black, resinous looking, soluble in water. We shall have occasion hereafter to advert to its chemical properties. Our attention will now be directed to its physiological effects when exerted on living animals. Woorara resembles venom in this, that it can be eaten, that is, taken into the digestive canal of man and other animals with impunity, whilst when introduced by puncture under the skin, or in any other part of the body, its absorption is invariably attended with fatal results in all animals. This fact we have repeatedly tested. The action of this poison is instantaneous, when it is injected directly into the blood vessels. A weak, watery solution thrown into the jugular vein of a dog or a rabbit, has always produced sudden death, the animal uttering no cry, nor manifesting any convulsive agitation. The effect on the whole organization is electric, and the vital functions are arrested as by lightning. When introduced under the skin in solution or in solid fragments, its poisonous action manifests itself more slowly, and the time is varied by the dose, the size of the animal, and its species. Other things being equal, birds die soonest, then the mammalia, and then reptiles; thus, with the same specimen, birds and mammalia die in a few minutes, whilst a reptile will survive for several hours. But death is invariably accompanied by similar, and very remarkable symptoms; in the first place, when pricked, the animal apparently feels nothing. If a bird, for example, it flies as usual, and at the end of a few seconds, when the woorara is very active, it drops dead without uttering a cry, or appearing to suffer; if it be a rabbit or a dog, it runs about as usual after the puncture, without any abnormal symptom, then, after some seconds, as if fatigued, it lies down, appears to sleep, its respiration stops, and life is terminated, without a groan or sign of pain. Rarely do we see even slight contraction of the sub-cutaneous muscles of the face and body.
On examining immediately after death, the bodies of {79} animals thus poisoned, we have always observed phenomena which indicate a complete annihilation of all the properties of the nervous system. It is generally found that when death has been sudden, the nerves retain for some time the power of reaction under the influence of mechanical or chemical excitement; if a nerve of motion be excited, convulsions supervene in the muscles to which it leads; if the skin be pinched, it causes reflex motion. But none of these are observed after death by woorara. The nerves of the still warm animal, in whom life has been extinct but a minute, are inert as if it had been dead and cold for several hours.
Again, in animals poisoned by woorara, the blood is invariably black, and frequently so changed as to coagulate with difficulty, and not to become bright on re-exposure to air.
If we compare this effect of woorara with that of the viper, we shall observe a great analogy between them, varying only in intensity. We may further remark, that woorara, like the poison of the viper, may be introduced with impunity into the intestinal canal. We might be led to suppose from its perfect innocuousness when introduced into the stomach, that it became modified, or in a word, digested by the gastric juice, so as to destroy its deleterious properties. To verify this supposition, we caused some woorara to be digested in the gastric juice of a dog, at a temperature of between 38° and 40° of centigrade. After leaving it for forty-eight hours, we introduced it by puncture into the veins of some animals, who died with the before-named symptoms; establishing the fact, that a prolonged contact with the gastric juice in no way modified its deleterious properties. This experiment has been repeated in various ways, and on the separate parts, as well as on the living animal. We made a dog, in whose stomach we had formed a fistulous opening, swallow some fragments of woorara mixed with his food; after a little time we obtained some of his gastric juice, and on analysis found it to resemble in every respect a solution of woorara. Thus we have the singular phenomenon of an animal, carrying in its stomach, harmless to itself, a liquid {80} which would cause instant death to any others who should be inoculated with it. Not only did the dog which swallowed the poison experience no fatal result from it, but its digestion was not even affected by it; the gastric juice thus mixed retaining all its digestive properties.
These facts prove that the innocuousness of woorara when introduced into the stomach, is not attributable to the action of the gastric juice. The other intestinal liquids, saliva, bile, pancreatic juice, were attended with similar results, none of them producing by contact the least difference in the poisonous effect of woorara.