Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 15.djvu/16

 2     EFFECTS OF HYDROCYANIC ACID

are always uniform or not; what dose may destroy life; if the same dose always produces the same effects; if the effects vary according to the quantity taken, or to the manner and mode in which it is exhibited; if the degree of concentration or dilution alters the effects, and if there be any means of counteracting its action — if so, if we are to look for an antidote to the poison, or only to a remedy for the effects of it; — if to an antidote, what is the most potential; if to a remedy only, which should be selected. In fact, when called to a person suffering from the effects of a poisonous dose of hydrocyanic acid, what is to be done? Though many experiments have been made, and many cases of poisoning by hydrocyanic acid have been reported, it will, I apprehend, be readily admitted by every one who has attended to the subject, that upon some of these points the evidence is most contradictory, while upon others scarcely anything more than conjecture is known. If there be any who doubt this, I would refer them to the reports of the two trials above alluded to, and to the most recent works upon poisons for the truth of it. Some years ago I made many experiments upon animals, (at the time of the trial of the druggist at Leicester, in 1829,) and at various times since. I had given the acid to different animals without, however, having arrived at any definite result, when last year, soon after the trial of Tawell, and occasioned, I have every reason to believe, by the parties reading and dwelling upon that, I witnessed within a few days of each other two cases in which hydirocyanic acid had been taken for the purpose of self destruction. In one, the person after I had been with him some time, died;* in the other, the man recovered, having taken the largest known dose of any one who has recovered.† In both the effects were so different in many particulars from what was commonly believed to be produced by hydrocyanic acid, that I was strongly impressed with the importance of something more certain being known. Soon after this, circumstances enabled me to institute an extended series of observations upon dogs. I determined to endeavour, if possible, to obtain more precise information upon the foregoing questions. The number of experiments made upon dogs is eighty, and upon other creatures (vertebrata and

† Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, August 13, 1845.
 * Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, July 23, 1845.