Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/647

 at Perigueux in France, who took by mistake a mixture containing a drachm and a half of extract, was attacked in half an hour with delirium, which soon became furious, and continued till next day, when it gradually left him. In others the delirium is attended with a singular and total loss of consciousness, but without coma, as in the following case which occurred not long ago at St. Omer. A young man having taken by mistake an infusion of two drachms of dried leaves, was seized in an hour with great dryness of the mouth and throat, afterwards slight delirium, loss of consciousness, and dilatation of the pupil, next with retention of urine, convulsive twitches of the face and extremities, and incessant tendency to walk up and down. In three hours, after the action of an emetic and a clyster, he lay down, but still in a state of total unconsciousness and muttering delirium. Blood-letting being at last resorted to as a remedy, he speedily recovered his senses, and eventually got well, after suffering for some time from headache, fatigue, and much debility.

The pupil is not only dilated in all cases, but likewise for the most part insensible; and, as in the soldiers at Dresden, the eyeball is sometimes red and prominent. The vision also, as in these soldiers, is generally obscure; sometimes it is lost for a time; and so completely that even the brightest light cannot be distinguished.

The sopor or lethargy, which follows the delirium, occasionally does not supervene for a considerable interval. In a case related by Munnik it did not begin till twelve hours after the poison was taken. Sometimes, as in the same case, the delirium returns when the stupor goes off. A patient of my colleague Dr. Simpson, after using a belladonna suppository consisting of two grains of extract, was attacked with dryness of the throat and delirium, followed soon by drowsiness and stupor; and in five or six hours more, as the stupor wore off, the delirium returned, prompting to constant movements as if she was busy with her toilette and various other ordinary occupations. Sometimes the relation of the delirium to the coma is reversed, as in a case related by Mr. Clayton, where sopor came on first, and delirium ensued in six hours. The dose in this instance was forty grains of the extract. Frequently the stupor is not distinct at any stage.—Even the delirium is not always formed rapidly. A man whose case is described by Sir John Hill did not become giddy for two hours after eating the berries, and the delirium did not appear till five hours later. In Mr. Brumwell's cases, the delirium was not particularly noticed till the morning after the berries were taken.

Convulsions, it has been already stated, are rare. In the case from the 24th volume of Sedillot's Journal, the muscles of the face were somewhat convulsed: there is also at times more or less locked-*