Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/611

 spirit of nitric ether, had an attack of spontaneous vomiting, which was forthwith encouraged by sulphate of zinc. He nevertheless became pale and convulsed; the pulse disappeared; and delirious muttering ensued, with risus sardonicus, sparkling of the eyes, and panting respiration. Recovery, however, took place under the use of brandy and ammonia. The morbid appearances are the same as in poisoning with the pure acid. In Mertzdorff's case the whole blood and body emitted a smell of almonds; putrefaction had begun, though the inspection was made twenty-nine hours after death; the blood throughout was fluid, and flowed from the nostrils and mouth; the veins were every where turgid; the cerebral vessels gorged; the stomach and intestines very red.—In the case from the Medical and Physical Journal of poisoning with the almond itself, the vessels of the brain were much gorged, and the eyes glistening and staring as if the person had been alive. Of the Cherry-Laurel.

The cherry-laurel, or Cerasus lauro-cerasus, was at one time much used for flavouring liqueurs and sweetmeats. But it is now less employed than formerly, as fatal accidents have happened from its having been used in too large quantity. The custom, however, has not been altogether abandoned; for there is an account in an English newspaper in 1823 of two persons killed by ratifia'd brandy, which had been flavoured with this plant; and Dr. Paris has mentioned an instance of several children at an English boarding-school having been dangerously affected by a custard flavoured with the leaves. Almost every part of the plant is poisonous, especially the leaves and kernels; but the pulp of the cherry is not. The flower has a totally different odour from the leaves. The healthy vigorous shoots in the early part of summer, and the inner bark, both then and in autumn, smell strongly of the bitter almond when broken across. The kernels of the seeds have a strong taste of bitter almonds.—The plant yields a distilled water and an essential oil, which Robiquet found to have all the chemical properties of the oil of bitter almond. —A very peculiar source of danger in using the leaves of this plant, for imparting a ratafia flavour to sweetmeats and liqueurs, is that the proportion of oil varies excessively according to the age of the leaf. It abounds most in the young undeveloped leaves, and diminishes gradually afterwards. Hence, the leaves being evergreen and outliving more than two summers, the young leaves in May or June contain, as I have found, nearly ten times as much oil as the old ones at the same moment.

Cherry-laurel oil, according to Schrader, contains 7·66 per cent. of hydrocyanic acid; but according to Göppert, a specimen supposed