with a black slough, easily removed by friction. When the gullet was tied to prevent vomiting, less doses proved more quickly fatal. He likewise observed that the matter vomited in these experiments, even a few minutes after the administration of the poison, had no appearance or odour of bromine; whence it is reasonable to conclude, that, as in the instance of iodine, a chemical change takes place with the aid of certain vital operations, so that the bromine becomes hydrobromic acid.—The experiments of Dr. Butske assign to it more activity as a poison than those now related. For he found that a dog died in a day from taking only five grains dissolved in two ounces of water; and the symptoms were laborious breathing, loud cries, and convulsions. In the dead body he found the stomach internally chequered with bloody extravasation, and filled with bloody mucus, the duodenal mucous membrane universally injected, but the rest of the alimentary canal in a healthy state.—Dr. Glover remarked in such cases, besides the usual symptoms of an irritant action on the stomach, coryza, sneezing, salivation and difficult breathing. Sixty minims killed a cat in seventeen minutes, two fluidrachms a dog in five hours and a half, ten grains a rabbit in five minutes. A dog twice got twenty grains in solution and recovered, but died after a third dose of the same amount. Another got twenty grains in solution every two or three days for a month without injury. In some of these experiments hydrobromic acid was detected in the blood and urine.
Little is yet known of the effects of bromine on man. Butske found that a drop and a half in half an ounce of water produced a sense of heat in the mouth, gullet, and stomach, and subsequently colic pains; and that two drops and a half in an ounce of mucilage excited, in addition to the preceding symptoms, great nausea, hiccup, and increased secretion of mucus. On the other hand M. Fournet, who gave doses gradually increasing from two to sixty drops daily for many weeks, observed that the lowest doses exited itching in the hands and feet, and sometimes colic; that an increase in the quantity caused heat in the chest and nausea; and that forty-five drops occasioned also severe burning and sense of acidity in the stomach, which however were temporary. The appetite was in general rather improved, and the body became more plump.[1]—Bromine appears on the whole to be a pure local irritant. It acts mot energetically when most thoroughly dissolved in water.
Hydrobromic acid seems from the experiments of Dr. Glover to be a pure irritant and corrosive, allied in action and energy to hydrochloric acid. The same experimentalist found that bromine of potassium in the dose of forty grains had sometimes little or no effect on dogs when injected into the blood-vessels, while in other instances less doses cause speedy death by paralysing the heart. Barthez observed that half a drachm in solution produced dulness and depression in dogs, but no other bad effect; and that two drachms retained in the stomach by tying the gullet occasioned death in three days with symptoms of irritant poisoning. M. Maillet observed that two
- ↑ Bulletins de Thérapeutique, Fevrier, 1830.
