Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/533

 confounded with narcotic poisoning. Hypertrophy of the brain, it is true, is always a chronic or slow disease, but, like other diseases of the brain, its early stages may possibly be so completely latent that the patient may appear to die of a few hours' illness. This, however, must be left to the determination of future experience. The most rapid case yet published proved fatal twenty-four hours after the first appearance of symptoms.

The appearances left in the body are increased density and firmness of the whole brain or a part of it,—flattening of the convolutions on their outer surface, so that their grooves are almost obliterated and the investing membrane uncommonly dry,—unusual emptiness of the blood-vessels of the brain and its membranes,—and a protrusion of the brain upwards on removal of the skull-cap, as if the organ were too large for its containing cavity.

Some pathologists doubt the existence of hypertrophy of the brain as a distinct disease, and conceive that the appearance of flattening of the convolutions is produced by serum effused between the dura mater and arachnoid membrane. But this explanation will not account for those cases in which it is expressly stated that little or no fluid was to be found in any part of the brain or in the base of the skull.

Of the Distinction between Diseases of the Spinal Cord and Narcotic Poisoning.

It is not necessary to say much on the acute diseases of the spinal cord, which are apt to be confounded with the effects of narcotic poisons. The diseases are extravasation of blood into the spinal canal, inflammation of the membranes, and inflammation [ramollissement] of the cord itself. These disorders are commonly marked by obvious and characteristic symptoms, as well as a much slower course than that of the affections induced by narcotic poisons. But occasionally they approach closely the characters of some of the slow cases of narcotic poisoning,—palsy being absent, the leading symptoms consisting of delirium, convulsions, and coma, and the fatal event occurring within the third day. Dr. Abercrombie and M. Ollivier have related examples of the kind arising from extravasation of blood, serous effusion, and softening of the cord. Such cases are exceedingly rare; but the possibility of their occurrence should impose on the medical jurist the necessity of examining the spine with care in all judicial cases of alleged narcotic poisoning, especially when death has not been rapid. Of the Distinction between syncopal Asphyxia, and Narcotic Poisons.

The only other natural disease requiring notice under the present