POISON IN FROG.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 254, 24 September 1935, Page 4

POISON IN FROG.

PROFESSOR’S CHANCE DISCOVERY.

The discovery by chance of an unknown poison in the. skin of the common Australian frog was described to the section of pharmacology, therapeutics, and anaesthesia of the B.M.A. Conference in Melbourne, by Professor W. A. Osborne, Professor of Physiology in the University of Melbourne. Professor Osborne said that after he 1 had been handling a frog he touched his eye with his hand. He immediately felt intense pain. When the poison was administered to a dog, it had a powerful effect on the blood vessels, sending them into a violent spasm. So minute was the quantity of the poison in the skin of the frog that it had not yet been possible to elaborate a method of obtaining it in a pure state. He could hazard** no guess as to the possible scientific value of the substance. Sir William Willeox, the eminent toxicologist, and president of the section, read a paper on hypnotics, or the drugs used to produce an insensibility closely resembling normal sleep. He laid down guiding rules for tne use of these drugs which, he said, when handled injudiciously, were dangerous. He discussed the possibility of misuse, and showed how the public needed to bo protected against access to them unless they were used under medical guidance. Legislation on this point, he said, was more advanced in Australia than in Great- Britain.