- flammation in the alimentary canal continue violent; and more rarely
both classes of symptoms begin about the same period. The nervous affection varies in different individuals. The most formidable is coma; the slightest, a peculiar, imperfect palsy of the arms or legs, resembling what is occasioned by the poison of lead; and between these extremes have been observed epileptic fits, or tetanus, or an affection resembling hysteria, or mania. As these affections are of much interest, in respect to the evidence of poisoning from symptoms, it may be well to relate in abstract a few characteristic examples of each.
A good example of epilepsy supervening on the ordinary symptoms of inflammation has been minutely related by Dr. Roget. A girl swallowed a drachm of arsenic, and was in consequence attacked violently with the usual symptoms of irritation in the whole alimentary canal. After being ill about twenty-four hours, she experienced several distinct remissions and had some repose, attended with fainting. In twelve hours more she began to improve rapidly; the pain subsided, her strength and spirits returned, and the stomach became capable of retaining liquids. So far this patient laboured under the common effects of arsenic. But a new train of symptoms then gradually approached. Towards the close of the second day she was harassed with frightful dreams, starting from sleep, and tendency to faint; next morning with coldness along the spine, giddiness, and intolerance of light; and on the fourth day with aching of the extremities and tingling of the whole skin. These symptoms continued till the close of the sixth day, when she was suddenly seized with convulsions of the left side, foaming at the mouth, and total insensibility. The convulsions endured two hours, the insensibility throughout the whole night. Next evening she had another and a similar fit. A third, but slighter fit occurred on the morning of the tenth; another next day at noon; and they continued to return occasionally till the nineteenth day. For some time longer she was affected with tightness across the chest and stomach complaints; but she was eventually restored to perfect health.[1]
A characteristic set of similar cases, which occurred in London in 1815, has been related in a treatise on arsenic by Mr. Marshall.[2] They were the subject of investigation on the trial of Eliza Fenning, a maid-servant, who attempted to poison the whole of her master's family by mixing arsenic with a dumpling, and whose condemnation excited an extraordinary sensation at the time, as many persons believed her to be innocent. Five individuals partook of the poisoned dish, and they were all violently seized with the usual inflammatory symptoms. But farther, one had an epileptic fit on the first day, which returned on the second, and he had besides frequent twitches of the muscles of the trunk, a feeling of numbness in one side, and heat and tingling of the feet and hands. Another had tremors of the right arm and leg on the first day, and several epileptic fits in the
