made to vomit forcibly by emetics, presented no decided symptom at the time, or for three days more; but on the fourth day difficult breathing ensued, with anxiety of expression, frequency of the pulse, and heat of the skin; and next day death took place. There was no morbid appearance found in the body.[1] I do not know of any parallel instance of death from arsenic, and cannot admit that the poison was the cause of the symptoms and fatal event.
Soon after the sickness begins, or about the same time, the region of the stomach feels painful, the pain being commonly of a burning kind, and much aggravated by pressure. Violent fits of vomiting and retching then speedily ensue, especially when drink is taken. There is often also a sense of dryness, heat, and tightness in the throat, creating an incessant desire for drink; and this affection often precedes the vomiting. Occasionally it is wanting, at other times so severe as to be attended with suffocation and convulsive vomiting at the sight of fluids.[2] Hoarseness and difficulty of speech are commonly combined with it. The matter vomited is greenish or yellowish; but sometimes streaked or mixed with blood, particularly when the case lasts longer than a day.
In no long time after the first illness diarrhœa generally makes its appearance, but not always. In some cases, instead of it, the patient is tormented by frequent, ineffectual calls: in others the great intestines are scarcely affected. About this time the pain in the stomach is excruciating, and is often likened by the sufferer to a fire burning within him. It likewise extends more or less downwards, particularly when the diarrhœa or tenesmus is severe; and the belly is commonly tense and tender, sometimes also swollen, though not frequently,—sometimes even on the contrary drawn in at the navel.[3] When the diarrhœa is severe, the anus is commonly excoriated and affected with burning pain.[4] In such cases the burning pain may extend along the whole course of the alimentary canal from the throat to the anus. Nay at times the mouth and lips are also inflamed, presenting dark specks or blisters.[5]
Sometimes there are likewise present signs of irritation of the lungs and air-passages,—almost always shortness of breath (which, however, is chiefly owing to the tenderness of the belly),—often a sense of tightness across the bottom of the chest, and more rarely decided pain in the same quarter, darting also through the upper part of the chest. Sometimes pneumonia has appeared a prominent affection during life, and been distinctly traced in the dead body.[6]
In many instances, too, the urinary passages are affected, the patient being harassed with frequent, painful and difficult micturition, swelling of the penis, and pain in the region of the bladder, or, if a female,
- ↑ Mr. Page, Lancet, 1836-37, ii. 626.
- ↑ Wendland in Augustin's Archiv der Staatsarzneikunde, ii. 34.
- ↑ Pyl's Aufsätze und Beob. i. 55.
- ↑ Bachmann. See subsequently, p. 260. State Trials, xviii. Case of Miss Blandy.
- ↑ Wepfer, Historia Cicutæ, 276.
- ↑ In a case by Schlegel. See Henke's Zeitschrift für die Staatsarzneikunde, i. 81.
