Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/34

 2. As to state of aggregation,—poisons act the more energetically the more minutely they are divided, and hence most energetically when in solution. Some which are very energetic in the fluid state, hardly act at all when undissolved. Morphia, the alkaloid of opium, may be given in powder to a dog without injury in a dose, which, if dissolved in oil or alcohol, would soon kill several. Previously dissolving poisons favours their action in two ways,—by diffusing them quickly over a large surface, and by fitting them for entering the bibulous vessels. Poisons, before being absorbed, must be dissolved; and hence, those which act though solid and insoluble in water, must, as a preliminary step, be dissolved by the animal fluids at the mouths of the vessels. In this way the poisonous effects of carbonate of baryta and arsenite of copper are explained; for though insoluble in water, they are soluble in the juices of the stomach.

Differences in aggregation, like differences in quantity, may affect the kind as well as the degree of action. Camphor in fragments commonly causes inflammation of the stomach; dissolved in spirit or olive oil, it causes delirium or tetanus and coma.

The reduction of certain poisons to the state of vapour serves the same end as dissolving them. When poisons are to be introduced by the skin, no previous operation is more effectual than that of converting them into vapour.

3. The next modifying cause is chemical combination. This is sometimes nothing more than a variety of the last. If a poison, in combining with another substance, acquire greater solubility, it also generally acquires greater activity, and vice versa: Morphia, itself almost inert, because insoluble, becomes active by uniting with acids, for they render it very soluble: Baryta as a very active poison, becomes quite inert by uniting with sulphuric acid, for the sulphate of baryta is altogether insoluble.

In regard to the influence of chemical combination two general laws may be laid down. One is, that ''poisons which only act locally, have their action much impaired or even neutralized, in their chemical combinations''. Sulphuric acid and muriatic acid on the one hand, and the two fixed alkalis on the other, possess a violent local action; but if they are united so as to form sulphates or muriates, although still very soluble, they become merely gentle laxatives. But the case is altered if either of the combining poisons also act by entering the blood. For the second general law is, that ''the action of poisons which operate by entering the blood, although it may be somewhat lessened, cannot be destroyed or altered in their chemical combinations''. Morphia acts like opinm if dissolved in alcohol or fixed oil; if an acid be substituted as the solvent, a salt is formed which is endowed with the same properties: The sulphate, muriate, nitrate, acetate of morphia all act like opium. Strychnia, arsenic, hydrocyanic acid, oxalic acid, and many more come under the same denomination: Each produces its peculiar effects, with whatever substance it is combined, provided it do not become insoluble.

Mr. Blake has recently laid down what may be considered a branch or corollary of the second of these general propositions, and has con