Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/289

Rh P I P I 279 are usually inoperative. After this the patient must be kept awake by walking him about, applying cold and warm douches alternately to the chest, shouting into the ears, flicking the hands and i eet with damp towels, and the application of the galvanic current. Circulation should be promoted by friction of the limbs and trunk. Strong infusion of coffee, ammonia, and alcoholic stimulants may be freely administered. As a last resort when the breathing inter mits, artificial respiration may be performed. The hypodermic injection of full doses of atropine has proved of marked benefit, atropine and morphia being to a certain extent counter-poisons. Opium is a drug to which its victims may become habituated by the use of gradually increasing doses ; and the practice of opium- eating, as it is termed, is a pernicious one. An atrophied condition of the body usually results. The only remedy is abstinence from the drug. 3. Strychnine and Strychnine-yielding Plants. The alkaloids strychnine and brucine, as well as all ths plants in which they are found, all act in the same manner, being highly poisonous, and causing death after spasms of a severe character. Strychnine was first extracted from the seeds of Strychnos Nux- Vomica in 1819, by Pelletier and Caventou. It exists in larger quantity iu other species of the genus Strychnos, and notably in Strychnos Ignatii. From the bark of Strychnos Nux- Vomica, known as false Angostura bark, another alkaloid, brucine, is also extracted. This bark was at one time wrongly supposed to be the bark of Brucca anti- dysentcrica ; hence the name brucia or brucine. Its effects are similar to those of strychnine, but its physiological activity is not so great. Many vermin-killers contain strychnine as their active ingredient. Strychnine, and all substances containing that alkaloid, produce their eti ects within a very few minutes usually within ten or fifteen minutes. The patient complains of stiffness about the neck, and his aspect exhibits terror. There is an impression of impending calamity or death. Very speedily the head is jerked back, the limbs ex tended, the back arched (opisthotonos), so that the body may rest on the head and heels only. The mouth is drawn ; and the condition is one known as tetanus. In a few moments these symptoms pass off, and there is complete relaxation of the spasm. The spasmodic condition speedily returns, and is brought about by the slightest touch or movement of the patient. Accessions and remissions of the tetanic state ensue rapidly till the patient succumbs, usually within half an hour of the administration of the poison. The best treatment is to put, and keep, the patient under the influence of chloroform till time is given for the excretion of the alkaloid, having pre viously given a full dose of chloral hydrate. 4. Aconite Poisoning. The ordinary blue rocket, wolfsbane, or monkshood, Aconitum Napellus, and an alkaloid extracted from it, aconitine, are perhaps the most deadly of known poisons. One- sixteenth of a grain of aconitine has proved fatal to a man. All the preparations of aconite produce a peculiar burning, tingling, and numbness of the parts to which they are applied. When given in large doses they produce violent vomiting, as a rule, more or less paralysis of motion and sensation, and great depression of the heart, usually ending in death from s^yncope. Intelligence remains unaffected till almost the last. The treatment consists in the hypodermic injection of tincture of foxglove (Digitalis) or its active principle digitalin, which is a counter-poison in its action upon the heart. The root of aconite has been eaten in mistake for that of horse-radish. 5. Belladonna. The belladonna or deadly nightshade, Atropa Belladonna, contains an alkaloid, atropine, which is largely used by oculists to procure dilatation of the pupils of the eye. The bright scarlet berries of the plant have been eaten by children, who are attracted by their tempting appearance. Belladonna produces dilatation of the pupils, rapid pulse, hot dry flushed skin, with an eruption not unlike that of scarlatina, soreness of the throat, with difficulty of swallowing, intense thirst, and gay mirthful delirium. The treatment consists in evacuation of the poison by means of the stomach-pump, and the hypodermic injection of morphia as a counter-poison. 4. Gaseous Poisons. The effects of these are varied, some of them acting as irritants, while others have a specific effect, apparently in consequence of their forming chemical compounds with the red pigment of the blood, and thus destroying its capa bility of acting as a carrier of oxygen. 1. Chlorine and bromine act as powerful irritants. They provoke spasm of the glottis when inhaled, and subsequently induce in flammation of the respiratory mucous membrane, which may prove speedily fatal. Inhalation of diluted ammonia vapour is the best remedy. 2. Hydrochloric or muriatic acid gas and hydrofluoric or fluoric acid gas are irritating and destructive to life. The former is more destructive to vegetable life than even chlorine. They arc emitted in many processes of manufacture, and especially in the manufac ture of carbonate of soda from common salt by Le Blanc s process, in the salt-glazing of earthenware, and in the manufacture of arti ficial manures. 3. Sulphurous Acid Gas. The gas given off by burning sulphur is most suffocating and irritating. Its inhalation, even in a highly diluted state, may cause speedy death from spasmodic closure of the glottis. 4. Nitrous vapours, or gaseous oxides of nitrogen (except nitrous oxide), are given off from galvanic batteries excited by nitric acid ; also in the process of etching on copper. They produce, when diluted, little immediate irritation, but are exceedingly dangerous, setting up extensive and fatal inflammation of the lungs. 5. Ammonia gas is highly irritant, but does not often prove fatal. 6. Carbonic acid gas is heavier than atmospheric air, is totally irrespirable when pure, and is fatal when present in large quantities in respired air. It is given off from burning fuel, accumulates in pits and wells as choke-damp, and constitutes the deadly after damp of coal-mines. It is also formed during alcoholic fermen tation, and hence accumulates in partially filled vats in which fer mented liquors are stored. When it is breathed in a concentrated state, death is almost instantaneous. Persons descending into wells foul with this gas sink down powerless, and are usually dead before they can be removed from the vitiated atmosphere. In these cases there is true asphyxia ; but carbonic acid is also a narcotic gas. Persons exposed to an atmosphere partially composed of this gas, but not long enough to produce fatal results, are affected with ster torous breathings, oppression, flushed face, prominent eyes, swollen tongue, and feeble pulse. The proper treatment is removal from the foul atmosphere, alternate cold and tepid douches to the chest, friction of the limbs and trunk, and artificial respiration. &quot;When animation is restored the patient should be put to bed and kept quiet, but should be carefully watched in case of relapse. 7. Carbonic oxide gas is given off by burning charcoal and other forms of fuel, mixed with carbonic acid. The poisonous effects of charcoal fumes are perhaps due rather to the more poisonous car bonic oxide than to the less poisonous carbonic acid. An atmo sphere containing less than 1 per cent, of carbonic oxide would doubtless be fatal if breathed for many minutes. Carbonic oxide forms with haemoglobin, the red pigment of the blood, a bright scarlet compound. The compound is very stable, and the oxide cannot be displaced by atmospheric oxygen. Hence the blood after death from the inhalation of carbonic oxide is of a bright arterial hue, which it retains on exposure to air. 8. Coal-gas acts as an asphyxiant and narcotic. The appear ances met with after death more especially the fluid state of the blood are similar to those observed after death from carbonic oxide gas, which is a constituent of coal-gas, and to which the chief effect of coal-gas may be due. 9. Sulphuretted hydrogen gas is highly poisonous by whatever channel it gains access to the bod}. In a concentrated form it produces almost instant death from asphyxia. Even in a diluted state it produces colic, nausea, vomiting, and drowsiness. This may pass into insensibility with lividity and feeble respiration. The skin is cold and clammy, or bathed in perspiration. The red blood corpuscles are disintegrated. The treatment consists in re moval from the contaminated atmosphere, friction to the surface of the body, warmth, and the administration of stimulants. The inha lation of chlorine gas has been recommended on chemical grounds ; but it must be remembered that chlorine is itself poisonous. 10. Anesthetics. Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, and the gases or vapours of other anaesthetic substances, such as chloroform, pro duce death by asphyxia, and perhaps otherwise. Obviously, as a rule, medical assistance is at hand. The treatment consists in artificial respiration, and the use of galvanic current. 1 1 . Vapours of Hydrocarbons. The volatile vapours of the natural hydrocarbons known as benzoline, petroleum, &c., are poisonous when inhaled for lengthened periods. (T. S.*) POISSON, SIMEON DENIS (1781-1840) a celebrated French mathematician, was born at Pithiviers in the department of Loiret, on the 21st June 1781. His father, Simeon Poisson, served as a common soldier in the Hanoverian wars ; but, disgusted by the ill treatment he received from his patrician officers, he deserted. About the time of the birth of his son Simeon Denis he occupied a small administrative post at Pithiviers, and seems to have been at the head of the local government of the place during the revolutionary period. The infant Poisson was put out to nurse, and concerning his nursing Arago relates the following story, which he had from its hero himself. One day the anxious father went to visit his son, but found that the nurse had gone to the fields. Impatient,