Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/399

 *mals, the symptoms being those of pure irritant poisoning. Few illustrative cases, however, have as yet been made public. In Rust's Journal there is the case of a girl, who took as an emmenagogue, an ounce of green vitriol dissolved in beer, and suffered in consequence from colic pains, constant vomiting and purging for seven hours, but eventually recovered under the use of mucilaginous and oily drinks. A fatal case of poisoning with this substance occurs in the Parliamentary Returns of death from poison in England during the years 1837-38 [see p. 90].—Dr. Combe of Leith has communicated to me an instructive case of fatal poisoning with the tincture of the chloride of iron, which was taken to the extent of an ounce and a half by a gardener accidentally instead of whisky. Violent pain in the throat and stomach, tension and contraction of the epigastrium, and nausea immediately ensued; afterwards coldness of the skin and feebleness of the pulse were remarked; and then vomiting of an inky fluid, with subsequently profuse vomiting of mucus and blood, and also bloody stools under the use of laxatives. He remained for some days in a very precarious state, but then began to rally, and in three weeks resumed his occupation. But in two weeks more Dr. Combe found him emaciated, cadaverous in appearance, and affected with pains in the stomach, costiveness, and thirst; in which state he lingered for five days more, and then died. In the dead body there was found great thickening towards the pylorus, a cicatrized patch there three inches long and two inches broad, and another large patch of inflammatory redness surrounded by a white border. The preparation taken in this instance contained a third of its volume of hydrochloric acid and a tenth of its weight of oxide of iron; and consequently some of the acid was free.

The following remarkable case, in which I was lately consulted on the part of the Crown, will show that sulphate of iron is a more important poison than has been commonly thought. Suspicions having arisen in December, 1840, respecting the death of a child in the county of Fife about four months before, an investigation was made by the law authorities; and the body was disinterred and inspected by Mr. Dewar and Dr. James Dewar of Dunfermline. It was ascertained that the child, a girl four years of age, and previously in good health, was attacked with violent vomiting and purging immediately after breakfasting on porridge, and died in the course of the afternoon of the same day. A boy two years older, having seen a blue solution put into the porridge, and observing that the porridge had a bad taste, took only three spoonfuls of it, but became for a time very sick. The girl, being fed by a woman in the house, was made to take all her share; and in the course of the day the same person was seen by two children of the family to give a blue solution to the sick girl for drink. The woman was proved to have purchased sulphate of copper, and admitted having bought about this time both that salt and sulphate of iron, for the alleged purpose of dyeing some clothes. Poisoning with sulphate of copper was therefore suspected.