Definition of "veratrine" []

• A poisonous mixture of colorless crystalline alkaloids extracted from sabadilla seeds and formerly used medicinally as a counterirritant. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He cited documents in which it is inferred that Padre Pio asked a pharmacist for carbolic acid and veratrine but he did not explain that on the basis of other documents, it is quite clear what Padre Pio used these things for."
• "The colchiceæ, from which is obtained veratrine, form an exception among the monocotyledons."
• "Ptomaines are, for the most part, alkaloids generated during the process of putrefaction, and they closely resemble many of the vegetable alkaloids -- veratrine, morphine, and codeine, for example -- not only in chemical characters, but in physiological properties."