The book is offered as a practical guide for the chemical analysis of various poisons. As a laboratory manual for the qualitative analysis of these poisons, it goes into much detail with respect to technic and appears to be written from first hand experience.
The poisons are classified into various groups which are determined by the methods used for their isolation and separation. The author devotes a chapter or two to the discussion of each group and the poisons it contains. The groups are the volatile poisons—that is, those which distil with a current of steam—the metallic poisons, the acid, alkali or irritating salt type, the nonvolatile basic organic poisons, the nonvolatile nonbasic organic poisons and a miscellaneous group which require various special methods for isolation.
A systematic scheme is presented for the identification of alkaloids which is based on their reaction with various precipitation and color reagents. A chapter