bed without help two hours and a half afterwards, went to a chair at the fireside, and had scarce sat down when she expired.[1]
Various eruptions have at times been observed, especially in those who survive several days; but they are more frequent in the kind of cases to be considered afterwards, in which life is prolonged for a week or more. The eruptions have been variously described as resembling petechiæ, or measles, or red miliaria, or small-pox. In the case already quoted from Guilbert a copious eruption of miliary vesicles appeared on the fifth day, and for fifteen days afterwards. They were attended with perspiration and abatement of the other symptoms, and followed with desquamation of the cuticle. Another external affection which may be noticed is general swelling of the body. Several cases of this nature have been described by Dr. Schlegel of Meiningen; and in one of them the swelling, particularly round the eyes, appears to have been considerable.[2]
In some cases of the kind now under consideration a short remission or even a total intermission of all the distressing symptoms has been witnessed, particularly when death is retarded till the close of the second or third day.[3] This remission, which is accompanied with dozing stupor, is most generally observed about the beginning of the second day. It is merely temporary, the symptoms speedily returning with equal or increased violence. Sometimes the remission occurs oftener than once, as in a case related in the London Medical and Physical Journal. The patient, a child seven years old, lived thirty-six hours in a state of alternate calm and excitement; and during the state of calm no pulse was to be felt at the wrists.[4]—So far as at present appears a long intermission is impossible.
In cases such as those now described death often occurs about twenty-four hours after the poison is swallowed, and generally before the close of the third day. But on the one hand life has been sometimes prolonged, without the supervention of the symptoms belonging to a different variety of cases, for five or six days,[5] nay perhaps even for several weeks. And, on the other hand, the symptoms of irritation of the alimentary canal are sometimes distinct, although death takes place in a much shorter period than twenty-four hours. Metzger has related a striking case, fatal in six hours, in which the symptoms were acute colic pain, violent vomiting, and profuse diarrhœa;[6] and Wildberg has related a similar case fatal in the same time.[7] Hohnbaum describes another fatal in five hours;[8] and I met with as brief a case in this city in 1843, where all the usual symptoms of irritation in the stomach and bowels were violent. These symptoms were also present at first in Mr. Stallard's case, which was fatal in four hours;
- ↑ Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, lix. 350.
- ↑ Henke's Zeitschrift für die Staatsarzneikunde, i. 29.
- ↑ Tonnelier's case. Corvisart's Journal de Médecine, iv.—Roget's case. Med. Chir. Transactions, ii.
- ↑ Med. and Phys. Journal, xxviii. 347.
- ↑ Henke's Zeitschrift, i. 31.
- ↑ De Veneficio-caute dijudicando. Schlegel's Opusc. iv. 22.
- ↑ Praktisches Handbuch für Physiker, iii. 298.
- ↑ Zeitschrift für die Staatsarzneikunde, ii. 307.
