Witness, cross-examined further.—“The solution injected into the mouse was measured on each occasion. About three minims of liquid altogether was injected. With the exception of the urine and one of the vomits, the injections were unmixed. He believed, of course, that too much reliance must not be placed on experiments on animals.”
Question.—“Is it not a recognised fact that alkaloids are found in the human body after death, irrespective of poisons?”
Answer.—“It is a question still sub judice. It has been asserted that such is the case where the stomach or other viscera has been much decomposed.”
Question.—“What are called cadaveric alkaloids, utterly irrespective of the administration of poison?”
Answer.—“It is so asserted.”
Question.—“Is not Stas’s test a mode of extracting cadaveric alkaloids?”
Answer.—“Cadaveric as well as natural alkaloids.”
Question.—“Would these cadaveric alkaloids produce the same effects as the natural alkaloids?”
Answer.—“They have been described as producing the same effects; but I have seen no description of one producing the effects of aconitia. There is a test distinguishing these cadaveric alkaloids from all natural alkaloids, except morphia and veratria, and certainly from aconitia. That test was applied to these extracts when no morphia was present,—the reduction of the ferricyanide to the ferro-cyanide of potassium. There is an authority for the method of obtaining and distinguishing these cadaveric alkaloids. I was one of the first to point out that alkaloidal extracts from the stomachs of the dead would kill frogs if injected under the skin. I have read most of the foreign writers on this subject. I have not read Peschi, and cannot say whether they produce pricking of the tongue. I do not remember any of them describing sensations produced on the tongue from cadaveric alkaloids, similar to those from aconitia. Many things would produce prickings on the tongue.”