Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/27

 brought forward since the publications of the Essay of these gentlemen. In the first place, the concurrent testimony of a great number of recent chemical inquirers establishes undeniably, that poisons absorbed into the veins of the part to which they are applied are to be detected throughout many of the tissues of distant organs. This fact will be enlarged on and illustrated presently. Secondly, on the authority of Mr. Blake, and in contradiction of the experiments of Dr. Addison and Mr. Morgan, it appears that, as already stated, poisons act more quickly when injected into the aorta than into the venous system; a fact which is easily understood, on considering that when injected into the aorta they reach their destination directly, whereas, if injected into a vein they must first arrive at the right side of the heart, and then be transmitted through the circle of the pulmonary circulation before reaching even the aorta. Thirdly, the relative rapidity with which poisons act on different animals follows the ratio of the velocity of the circulation in each. Thus, Mr. Blake found, that in the horse nitrate of baryta is conveyed by the circulation from the jugular vein to the carotid artery in sixteen seconds, and that strychnia injected into the jugular vein begins to act on the nervous system after exactly the same interval: That in the dog chloride of barium passes from the vein to the artery in seven seconds, and extract of nux-vomica begins to act as a poison in twelve seconds: That in the fowl the passage of the blood seems to take place in six seconds, and the nitrate of strychnia to act in six seconds and a half: And that in the rabbit the passage of the blood is effected in four seconds only, and the first signs of the action of strychnia occur in four seconds and a half.

On the whole, then, it may be considered as well established, that probably all, but certainly some, poisons,—of the kind whose topical action does not consist in causing destruction or inflammation of the textures to which they are applied,—produce their remote effects solely by entering the blood, and through its means impregnating the organs which are acted on at a distance. And farther, if this doctrine be admitted as established, it may also be allowed, that many poisons which do cause topically destruction or inflammation, and remotely the usual sympathetic effects of these changes of structure, also possess the power of affecting distant organs through the medium of the blood.

Of the discovery of Poisons in the Blood.—Such being the case, it becomes an object of paramount interest, with reference both to the practice of medical jurisprudence, to inquire whether poisons can be detected in the circulating fluids, or generally in parts of the body remote from the place where they are introduced.

A variety of circumstances long rendered it impossible to determine satisfactorily the question, whether poisons could be detected in the blood, the secretions, and the soft textures of the body. In the first place, we now know that the quantity of the more active poisons, which is required to occasion death, is so small, that, con-*