Section II.—Of the Action of Tartar-Emetic, and the Symptoms it excites in Man.
There is little peculiarity in what is hitherto known of the symptoms of poisoning with tartar-emetic in man. Cases in which it has been taken to the requisite extent are rarely met with; and it has seldom remained long enough in the stomach to act deleteriously. But its action on animals would appear from the experiments of Magendie to be in some respects peculiar.
He found that dogs, like man, may take a large dose with impunity, for example half an ounce, if they are allowed to vomit; but that if the gullet is tied, from four to eight grains will kill them in a few hours. His subsequent experiments go to prove that death is owing to the poison exciting inflammation in the lungs. When six or eight grains dissolved in water were injected into a vein, the animal was attacked with vomiting and purging, and death ensued commonly within an hour. In the dead body he found not only redness of the whole villous coat of the stomach and intestines, but also that the lungs were of an orange-red or violet colour throughout, destitute of crepitation, gorged with blood, dense like the spleen, and here and there even hepatized. A larger quantity caused death more rapidly without affecting the alimentary canal; a smaller quantity caused intense inflammation there and death in twenty-four hours; but the lungs were always more or less affected.[1]
It is a fact, too, worthy of notice, that in whatever way this poison enters the body its effects are nearly the same. This is shown not only by the researches of Magendie already mentioned, but likewise by the experiments of Schloepfer, who found that a scruple dissolved in twelve parts of water and injected into the windpipe, caused violent vomiting, difficult breathing, and death in three days; and in the dead body the lungs and stomach were much inflamed, particularly the former.[2] It farther appears from an experiment related by Dr. Campbell, that, when applied to a wound, it acts with almost equal energy as when injected into a vein. Five grains killed a cat in this way in three hours, causing inflammation of the wound, and vivid redness of the stomach.[3] He did not find the lungs inflamed.
Magendie infers from his own researches that tartar-emetic occasions death when swallowed, not by inflaming the stomach, but through means of a general inflammatory state of the whole system subsequent to its absorption,—of which disorder the affection of the stomach and intestines and even that of the lungs are merely parts or symptoms. The later experiments of Rayer tend in some measure to confirm these views, by showing that death may occur without inflammation being excited any where. In animals killed in twenty-five
