Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/348

 the usual marks of salivation are also found in the mouth and throat. But such evidence can never amount to more than a strong presumption or probability.

—Of the Treatment of Poisoning with Mercury.

The treatment of poisoning by the compounds of mercury may be referred to two heads,—that which is required when irritation of the alimentary canal is the prominent disorder, and that which is designed to remove mercurial salivation.

Irritation and inflammation of the alimentary canal are to be treated nearly in the same way as when arsenic has been the poison swallowed. In the instance of corrosive sublimate we also possess a convenient and effectual antidote.

Several substances may be used as antidotes; but those which have hitherto been most employed are albumen and gluten.

It has been already hinted that albumen, in the form of white of eggs beat up with water, impairs or destroys the corrosive properties of bichloride of mercury, by decomposing it and producing an insoluble mercurial compound. For this discovery and the establishment of albumen as an antidote, medicine is indebted to Professor Orfila. He has related many satisfactory experiments in proof of its virtues. The following will serve as an example of the whole. Twelve grains of corrosive sublimate were given to a little dog, and allowed to act for eight minutes, so that its usual effects might fairly begin before the antidote was administered. White of eight eggs was then given; after several fits of vomiting the animal became apparently free from pain; and in five days it was quite well. According to Peschier the white of one egg is required to render four grains of the poison innocuous. The experiments of the Parisian toxicologist have been repeated and confirmed by others and particularly by Schloepfer; who found that when a dose was given to a rabbit sufficient to kill it in seven minutes if allowed to act uncontrolled, the administration of albumen, just as the signs of uneasiness appeared, prevented every serious symptom. Dr. Samuel Wright has found that if the administration of albumen is followed up by giving some astringent decoction or infusion, the beneficial effects are more complete, because the compound formed is less soluble in an excess of albumen.

The virtues of albumen have also been tried in the human subject with equally favourable results. The recovery of the patient, whose case was quoted formerly (p. 312), from Orfila's Toxicology, seems to have been owing in great measure to this remedy. In the Medical Repository another case is related, in which it Was also very serviceable. A third very apposite example of its good effects is related