ordinarily met with in the shops, which is
always more or less impure. But when the
strychnine is quite pure, no change occurs.
It was therefore necessary, on the discovery
of strychnine, to search for some other
substance which would be entirely depended on.
In the course of a few years, several tests
were discovered. In eighteen hundred and
forty-three, a French chemist, M. Marchand,
announced that when strychnine is rubbed
with peroxide of lead, and sulphuric acid
with some nitric acid, a blue mass is formed,
which becomes successively violet, red, and
yellow. Another chemist soon found that
oxide of manganese has a very similar effect.
Another test is chromate of potash, which
produces a magnificent violet colour. Chloride
of gold, when added to strychnine dissolved
in acetic acid causes a yellowish white powder
to be formed.

But besides these and several other
chemical tests, the presence of a poison which
acts with the characteristic violence of
strychnine is capable of physiological proof; that
is to say, if a portion of the suspected
substance be introduced into the system of a
living creature, and convulsion and spasm
ensue, we may infer with certainty that
strychnine is present.

This mode of proof, in addition to the
ordinary tests, has been made use of at the
recent case of poisoning at Leeds with great
success. Two mice, two rabbits, and a
guinea-pig were inoculated with the
spirituous extract obtained from the stomach.
The first mouse died in two minutes, the
second in twelve minutes, and one rabbit in
fifty minutes from the first introduction of
the poison. The symptoms preceding death
were in each case general distress, disturbed
respiration, twitchings and jerkings of the
limbs, and rigidity of the body. The other
rabbit suffered similarly, but after lying for
a while apparently dead, it eventually
recovered. In the guinea-pig the spasms were
not so violent, but the next day the animal
was found dead. Here the evidence thus
obtained was most conclusive. But it is
easy to suppose that life might be destroyed
by a dose of strychnine, and yet that
sufficient poison might not be procured after
death to act secondarily upon an animal the
size of a rabbit, or even a mouse; the
physiological test, in short, would have been
pronounced a failure from its want of delicacy,
had not Dr. Marshall Hall, who has paid
much attention to the action of strychnine,
resolved upon trying similar experiments
upon frogs, in whom, as in all other
cold-blooded animals, the nervous force is far
better observed than in the higher classes.

He commenced his experiments by
immersing a frog in water in which was
dissolved one thirty-third of a grain of a salt of
strychnine. The frog died, after exhibiting
the usual phenomena. Another frog was
destroyed by being subjected in the same
manner to the influence of the one-fiftieth of
a grain. These frogs were not affected in so
striking a manner as Dr. Hall had hoped;
they had been some time removed from the
pools; the experiments were shortly
afterwards continued upon young male frogs
fresh from their native swamps, these being
the most susceptible; and by the twelfth of
January, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, he
was able to state that he had been enabled
to detect the one-thousandth of a grain.

On the twenty-ninth of March he
communicated the result of further experiments,
which are in the highest degree satisfactory.
He had detected by means of the
strychnoscopic frog the one two-thousand five
hundredth of a grain. He had, moreover,
destroyed a cat by one-sixth of a grain, had
had the stomach prepared so as to get rid of
all unnecessary matters, and after the lapse
of some time, had placed in it successively
three frogs. What Dr. Hall terms strychnism
was induced in all three. How small
a quantity of strychnine remained in the
stomach, it is impossible to say; but that it
must have been extremely minute is
manifest, since a sixth of a grain is almost the
minimum that will destroy a cat, and therefore
almost the whole of it must have been
absorbed by the blood-vessels, in the destruction
of that animal. Especial thanks are
due to Dr. Marshall Hall for the immediate
publicity he has given to his interesting
experiments. He has thus dissipated the fatal,
delusion that strychnine cannot, like mineral
poisons, be detected after death. With our
present knowledge, it may be said with perfect
confidence, that as no poison produces
during life such marked and characteristic
effects, so none is more certainly detected after
death than the vegetable poison, strychnine.

A FEARFUL NIGHT.

"COME down at once Ellen is dying!"
That was all they said— seven short words!

I read the telegraph paper again and again,
before I could comprehend the full force of
the message it bore. My eyes wandered over
the regulations of the company, their tariff
of prices, the conditions under which they
undertook their functions, and at last reverting
to the pencilled lines, I roused myself
from the stupor into which their receipt
had thrown me, and understood their purport,
Ellen Luttrell was dying. She was my
cousin, my earliest playmate, my embodiment
of all that was lovely, pure, and womanly.
I have no sister, but had I been so blessed, I
could not have loved her with a deeper affection
than I bestowed on Ellen. My regard
for her was utterly passionless, utterly
indescribable. Love, in the common acceptation
of the word, had never been mentioned
between us; we confided to each other all our
flirtations, all the caprices, annoyances, and
jealousies which are the lot of young people.