The irritant class of poisons may be divided into five orders: the acids and their bases; the alkalies and their salts; the metallic compounds; the vegetable and animal irritants; the mechanical irritants. In a short appendix some substances will be mentioned which are not usually considered poisonous, but are capable of causing violent symptoms when taken in large doses.
The greater number of poisons included in the first order have a very powerful local action. Most of them possess true corrosive properties when they are sufficiently concentrated. Most of them likewise act remotely. One of them, oxalic acid, is evidently not so much an irritant as a narcotico-acrid; but since its most frequent action as seen in man is irritation, it seems inexpedient to break the natural arrangement for the sake of logical accuracy. This is far from being the only instance where the toxicologist is compelled to violate the principles of philosophical classification.
In the present Order are included four of the mineral acids, the sulphuric, nitric, muriatic and phosphoric, with their bases, phosphorus, sulphur, and chlorine: To these may be added iodine and bromine, with their compounds, and also oxalic and acetic acid, two of the vegetable acids.
CHAPTER III.
OF POISONING WITH THE MINERAL ACIDS.
Of the mineral acids, the most important, because the most
common, are sulphuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids. They
are remarkably similar in their effects on the animal economy.
Phosphoric acid is of much less consequence, and will be noticed
cursorily.
Sulphuric acid (vitriolic acid, vitriol—oil of vitriol), hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid,—spirit of salt) and nitric acid (aqua-fortis), have been long known to be possessed of very energetic properties; and consequently cases of poisoning with them have often been observed. The instances of the kind hitherto published have been chiefly the result of suicide; a considerable number have originated in accident; and, however extraordinary it may appear, a few have been cases of murder. Tartra, in an excellent memoir on the subject of poisoning with nitric acid, quotes an instance of a woman having been poisoned while in a state of intoxication by that acid being mixed with wine and poured down her throat.[1] Valentini has related the case of a woman who was killed by frequent doses of sulphuric acid given under the pretence of administering medicines.[2] In 1829 an hospital servant was condemned at Strasbourg for trying to murder his wife in like manner, by first making her ill with tartar-*
