Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/746

 CHAPTER XLII.

OF COMPOUND POISONING.

Having now investigated the three great classes of poisons in their relations to physiology, practice of physic, and medical jurisprudence, it will be necessary to offer a few observations on a subject of considerable medico-legal importance, which has been almost overlooked in systems of Toxicology,—Compound Poisoning.

When two poisons of different or opposite properties are administered about the same time in poisonous doses, the effects of the one may overpower and prevent the operation of the other, or they may merely modify the action of one another. In this manner the usual symptoms produced by one or by both may be entirely or in a great measure wanting; and even in the dead body the usual appearances occasioned by one or both may be modified or perhaps altogether absent.

Although in the course of reading I have met with a sufficient number of cases of the kind to show that compound poisoning is an object of some consequence to the medical jurist, the facts hitherto made public are not so numerous as to render a systematic arrangement of them practicable. The most advisable course, therefore, seems to be merely to describe for the present the cases which have been brought under my notice. These are as follows:

1. Poisoning with Arsenic and Alcohol.—A man, after taking twelve ounces of whisky at a debauch, swallowed, an hour afterwards, while in a state of excitement, but not particularly drunk, a quantity of arsenic, the dose of which could not be ascertained. Fifteen minutes after the arsenic was taken medical aid was procured, upon which repeated attempts were made to produce vomiting by means of ipecacuan and sulphate of zinc, but to no purpose. The stomach-pump was therefore resorted to; and, after at least an hour had been spent in previous attempts by emetics, the stomach was cleared of a fluid in which arsenic was unequivocally detected. No symptom of poisoning with arsenic followed. As the man took the arsenic seven hours after a meal, when of course the powder would at once be brought freely in contact with the villous coat of the stomach, it must, I think, be inferred, that the operation of the arsenic was impeded or prevented by the narcotism previously induced by the ardent spirits. For this case I am indebted to a former pupil, Mr. King.

Poisoning with Arsenic and Alcohol.—A case of the same description with the last, but which proved fatal in consequence of the large quantity of arsenic taken, has been related by Dr. Wood of Dumfries. A lad of seventeen, after a night's debauch, swallowed half an ounce of arsenic early in the morning. In two hours and a half, when Dr. Wood first saw him, there was no symptom of poisoning with arsenic,—no symptom at all indeed but languor and drow