the hydrochlorate of ammonia on animals have been examined by Professor Orfila and Dr. Arnold; but I have not yet met with any instance of its operation as a poison on man. When given to dogs it irritates and inflames the parts it touches, and causes the ordinary symptoms of local irritation. But it also acts remotely. For, first, like arsenic, and other poisons of the third order of irritants, it produces inflammation of the stomach, in whatever way it is applied to the body,—Orfila having found that organ affected when the salt was applied to the subcutaneous cellular tissue;[1] and, secondly, according to the experiments of Arnold, it causes, when swallowed, excessive muscular weakness, slow breathing, violent action of the heart, and tetanic spasms,—effects which cannot arise from mere injury of the stomach. Half a drachm will thus kill a rabbit in eight or ten minutes;[2] and two drachms a small dog in an hour.[3]
CHAPTER XII.
OF POISONING WITH THE ALKALINE SULPHURETS.
The liver of sulphur, or sulphuret of potass of the pharmacopœias,
the last poison of this order to be mentioned, is allied to the ammoniacal
salts in action. It is of no great consequence in a toxicological
point of view in this country, being put to little use; but several
accidents have been caused by it in France, where it is employed for
manufacturing artificial sulphureous waters; and farther, its properties
should be accurately ascertained, because till lately it was erroneously
resorted to as an antidote for some metallic poisons.
Chemical Tests.—It has a grayish, greenish, or yellowish colour when solid; its dust smells of sulphuretted hydrogen, which is also copiously disengaged from it by the mineral acids: and it forms with water a yellow solution of the same odour.—In composite fluids it may be detected by heating it with acetic acid, and passing the disengaged gases through solution of acetate of lead, in which a black precipitate of sulphuret of lead is produced, from the action of sulphuretted-hydrogen.[4]
Action and Symptoms.—Orfila found that a solution of six drachms and a half, secured in the stomach of a dog by a ligature on the gullet, caused death by tetanus in seven minutes, without leaving any morbid appearance in the body; that inferior doses caused death in the same manner, but at a later period, and with symptoms of irritation in the alimentary canal, which also was seen red, black, or even ulcerated after death; that a solution of twenty-two grains injected into the jugular vein killed a dog in two minutes, convulsions having preceded death, and the heart being found paralysed immediately
