Ptomaines. It has been known for a very long time that food which has undergone putre- fection may, under certain circumstances, act as a violent poison, setting up severe catarrh, and producing symptoms of a more general nature. Stale mussels, fish, and sausages have even a popular reputation on account of their poisonous qualities. A ptomaine was first obtained by Marquardt in 1865, and described by him as similar to coniine; in 1869 Sülzer and Sonnenschein isolated a crystallisable ptomaine which resembled in its qualities atropine and hyoscyamine. Of recent years attention has been called to this question from another point of view, and one of special interest to the medical jurist. At a trial at Rome, on the occasion of a supposed murder, a material was extracted from the body which had markedly poisonous qualities, similar to those of delphinine. It was supposed by those who undertook the prosecution that this poison had been administered to the deceased, but on the side of the defence it was pointed out that the extract, though similar in some respects to delphinine, was in others quite distinct, producing on the frog's heart very different effects.
Attention having been called to the subject, scientific investigators, especially those of Italy and Germany, busied themselves in extracting these poisonous materials, ptomaines (Gr. ptōma, 'a corpse'), from putrescent animal matters, and investigating both their chemical and physiological properties. These ptomaines can hardly be said to form a very distinct group of bodies from a chemical point of view, for some, like putrescine and cadaverine, are amines; others are amido-acids, like creatinin; and neurine, which has choline and muscarine closely allied to it, is trimethyl-vinyl-ammonium-hydroxide. It is even questionable whether they may be said to possess an alkaline reaction, at one time supposed to be a common property of all ptomaines, and one which related them to the vegetable alkaloids, for Salkowski has recently shown that creatinin, a body that has been long known and apparently carefully investigated, when obtained pure gives no reaction with litmus-paper, nor does it possess the power of combining with acids like a base. Brieger, too, has pointed out that it is scarcely possible to look upon ptomaines as powerful reducing agents, since many of them, especially those rich in oxygen, are deficient in this power.
Neither from a physiological point of view can we look upon the ptomaines as sui generis, and in the first case because many of them are produced by the action of organisms during their life. As well-known examples let us instance creatinin and neurine, which are produced every day in our living bodies, showing that during the putrefactive process we cannot be said to find substances which stand alone, and are invariably different from those formed during digestion and assimilation. Finally, in respect to their poisonous properties, not only are some of them perfectly harmless or poisons only in a minor degree, but it is highly probable that some of the most poisonous products of the action of putrefactive and other organisms are bodies (albumoses) of quite a different chemical constitution. It is therefore probable that in a few years, when more positive information is at our command, the term ptomaine will either be dropped altogether or restricted in its usage. In the meantime scientific men are actively investigating these bodies, and throwing much light on several involved problems of chemical physiology and preventive medicine.
See Selmi, Sulle Ptomaine ed Alkaloidi Cadaverici (Bologna, 1878); Panum, 'Das putride Gift, die Bacterien' (Virechow's Arch., Bd. 60, § 301); Nencki, 'Zur Geschichte der basischen Fäulnisprodukte' (Journ. f. pract. Chemie, Bd. 26); Brieger, Ueber Ptomaine (Berlin, 1885); also the article PYEMIA.