Another difference is, that the effects of mercurial irritants are fully more curable than those of arsenic. Recovery has taken place even after half an ounce was swallowed, with the effect of inducing both bloody vomiting and purging.[1] This may depend in part on the greater solubility of mercurial preparations, so that they are more easily discharged than arsenic, which often remains in the stomach after days of continual vomiting,—and in part on corrosive sublimate and other soluble salts of mercury being converted, in no long time and much more easily, into comparatively innocuous compounds, either by antidotes intentionally given for the purpose, or by animal principles in the secretions and accidental contents of the alimentary canal.
Lastly, deviations from the ordinary course and combination of the symptoms appear to be more rare in the instance of corrosive sublimate than in that of arsenic.
To these general statements, it may be right to add the heads of one or two actual cases, lest an exaggerated idea be conveyed of the combination of the symptoms as they usually occur. For this purpose it will be sufficient to refer to a fatal case related by M. Devergie, to an instance of recovery, without salivation having supervened, which is contained in Orfila's Toxicology, and to another by Dr. Vautier, presenting the mildest possible symptoms of this variety. In Devergie's case, the patient, a female, swallowed three drachms of corrosive sublimate in solution, and was soon after seized with vomiting, purging, and pain in the belly. In five hours, when she was first seen by Devergie, the skin was cold and damp, the limbs relaxed, the face pale, the eyes dull, and the expression that of horror and anxiety. The lips and tongue were white and shrivelled; and she had dreadful fits of pain and spasm in the throat whenever she attempted to swallow liquids, also burning and pricking along the course of the gullet, and increase of pain in these parts on pressure. There was likewise frequent vomiting of mucous and bilious matter, with burning pain in the stomach and tenderness of the epigastrium on the slightest pressure. She had farther profuse diarrhœa, with pricking pain and tenesmus. The pulsation of the heart was deep and slow, the pulse at the wrist almost imperceptible, and the breathing much retarded. In eighteen hours these symptoms continued without any material change; but the limbs were also then insensible. In twenty-three hours she died in a fit of fainting, the mind having been entire to the last.[2]—Orfila's case was that of a gentleman who drank by mistake an alcoholic solution of corrosive sublimate, but fortunately was so much alarmed by its taste while drinking it, that he did not finish the poisonous draught. Nevertheless, he was instantly attacked with a sense of tightness in the throat and burning in the stomach, and then with vomiting and purging. Two hours after the accident Orfila found him with the face very full and red, the eyes sparkling and restless, the pupils contracted, and the lips dry and cracked. There was also acute pain along the whole
