Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/389

 was found insensible, with the eyes turned up, the pupils dilated, the jaws locked, and the arms and face agitated with convulsions. A solution of common salt was immediately given as an antidote. In two hours there was some return of consciousness, and abatement of the convulsions, but still complete insensibility of the limbs, with redness of the features, and pain in the stomach. In eleven hours he could articulate. For thirty-six hours he continued subject to fits of protracted coma; but he eventually recovered. Sixteen hours after taking the poison he vomited a large quantity of chloride of silver.

The treatment of poisoning with the nitrate of silver is obvious. The muriate of soda by decomposing it will act as an antidote; and any signs of irritation left will be subdued by opium.

Of Poisoning with Gold.

Gold in various states of combination was at one time much used in medicine, and an attempt has been lately made to revive its employment. Its poisonous properties are powerful, and closely allied to those of the chlorides of tin and nitrate of silver. In the state of chloride it occasions death in three or four minutes when injected into the veins, even in very minute doses; and the lungs are found after death so turgid as to sink in water. But if swallowed, corrosion takes place; the salt is so rapidly decomposed, that none is taken up by the absorbents; and death ensues simply from the local injury. It has been of late used in medicine in France as an antisyphilitic; but even doses so small as a tenth of a grain have been known to produce an unpleasant degree of irritation in the stomach. In the state of fulminating gold, this metal has given rise to alarming poisoning in former times, when it was used medicinally. Plenck in his Toxicologia says it excites griping, diarrhœa, vomiting, convulsions, fainting, salivation; and sometimes has proved fatal. Hoffmann likewise repeatedly saw it prove fatal, and the most remarkable symptoms were vomiting, great anxiety and fainting. In one of his cases the dose was only six grains. These compounds are now so little met with that they need not be noticed in greater detail. Of Poisoning with Bismuth.

Bismuth, in its saline combinations, is also an active poison. One of its compounds, the trisnitrate, white bismuth, or magistery of bismuth, is a good deal used in medicine and the arts; and pearl white, one of the paints used in the cosmetic art, is the tartrate of this metal.

The former substance is an active poison. It is got by dissolving bismuth in nitric acid, and pouring hot water over the crystals; a