VERATRINE (Cevadine), the most important and the most toxic of a series of alkaloids (q.v.) obtained from sabadilla seeds (Merck, 1855). The name veratrine has been applied so variously that the synonym cevadine was introduced by Wrignt and Luff (1878) to distinguish the pure alkaloid (crystallized veratrine) which crystallizes from warm diluted alcohol in colourless rhombic prisms, melts at C, and has a specific rotation [44'2.5°. Cevadine, forms a series of
well-crystallized salts and behaves as an ester, being hydrolyzed to tiglic acid and the basic alcohol cevine, which is much less toxic than the parent alkaloid. In physiological action veratrine has affinities with the even more poisonous alkaloid aconitine.