Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/482

 other hand if the blistered surface be very extensive, death may take place in the primary stage of the local affection, in consequence of the great constitutional disturbance excited. Thus in 1841 a girl, affected with scabies, received cantharides ointment by mistake instead of sulphur ointment from an hospital-serjeant at Windsor Barracks; and having anointed nearly her whole body with it, was seized with violent burning pain of the integuments, followed by vesication, general fever, and the usual symptoms of the action of this poison on the urinary organs. These effects were so severe that she died in five days.

—Of the Morbid Appearances caused by Cantharides.

The only precise account I have hitherto seen of the morbid appearances caused by cantharides is contained in the history of the case from the Gazette de Santé. The brain was gorged with blood. The omentum, peritonæum, gullet, stomach, intestines, kidneys, ureters, and internal parts of generation were inflamed; and the mouth and tongue were stripped of their lining membrane.—In dogs Schubarth observed, besides the usual signs of inflammation in the alimentary canal, great redness of the tubular part of the kidneys, redness and extravasated patches on the inside of the bladder, and redness of the ureters as well as of the urethra. M. Poumet denies that any morbid appearance is ever found in any part of the genito-urinary organs of animals; but he sometimes found blood effused into the stomach and intestines. In Dr. Ives's case the blood vessels of the brain and cerebellum were gorged, the cerebellum spread over with lymph, the villous coat of the stomach softened and brittle, and the kidneys inflamed and presenting blood in their pelvis. When the case has been rapid, the remains of the powder may be found in the stomach or intestines by Poumet's process. From the researches of Orfila and Lesueur, confirmed by those of Poumet, it appears not to undergo decomposition for a long time when mixed with decaying animal matters. After nine months' interment the resplendent green points continue brilliant. —Of the Treatment of Poisoning with Cantharides.

The treatment of poisoning with cantharides is not well established. No antitode has yet been discovered. At one time fixed oil was believed to be an excellent remedy. But the experiments of Robiquet on the active principle of the poison, and those of Orfila on the effects of its oleaginous solution, rather prove that oil is the reverse of an antidote. The case mentioned in the Genoa Memoirs was evidently exasperated by the use of oil. When the accident is discovered early