Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/640

 observation.—The body usually remains flaccid, and the customary stage of rigidity is imperfect. In some instances, however, as in those related by Dr. Schenck, the stage of rigidity is passed through in the usual manner. It is not uncommon to find vomited matter lying beside the body, a circumstance which may naturally mislead the unpractised. This is represented by Professor Wagner of Berlin to have occurred uniformly in his experience; and it is also mentioned in many of the cases reported by others; but it is not invariable.—A red appearance in the stomach and intestines has been noticed in many cases, and often ascribed to inflammation; but it is probably nothing more than the result of the venous congestion, which pervades most of the membranous surfaces of the body.

The least variable appearances according to Dr. Bird are general lividity, protrusion of the tongue, a calm expression and attitude, cerebral congestion, and serous effusion. This author's paper in the Medical Gazette, 1838-39, i., or in Guy's Hospital Reports, iv., enters very fully into the appearances after death, and may be consulted with advantage for further details.

The treatment of poisoning with carbonic acid consists chiefly in the occasional employment of the cold affusion, and in moderate blood-letting either from the arm or from the head. In a case which happened at Paris, where a lady tried to make way with herself by breathing charcoal fumes, and was found in a state of almost hopeless insensibility, various remedies were tried unsuccessfully, till cupping from the nape of the neck was resorted to; and she then rapidly recovered. Another instance where blood-letting was also singularly successful deserves particular mention; because for three hours the patient remained without pulsation in any artery, and without the slightest perceptible respiration. At first neither by cupping nor by venesection could any blood be obtained; and it was only after the long interval just mentioned, and constant artificial inflation of the lungs, that the blood at length trickled slowly from the arm. The pulse and breathing were after this soon re-established; but it was not till eight hours later that sensibility returned.

Of Poisoning with Carbonic Oxide Gas.—Carbonic oxide gas, according to Nysten, has not any effect on man when injected into the pleura; but when thrown slowly into the veins, it gives the arterial blood a brownish tint, and induces for a short time a state resembling intoxication. The quantity injected into the veins was probably too small to produce the full effect, or it was discharged in passing through the lungs; for this gas certainly appears to be very deleterious when breathed by man, or the lower animals. M. Leblanc found by experiment that a sparrow was killed almost imme-*