flowers, not uncommon in moist ground, under the shelter of woods, is one of the most violent of all acrid vegetables inhabiting this country. I have known acute burning pain of the mouth and throat, pain of the stomach and vomiting, colic and some diarrhœa, occasioned by eating two leaves. The genus possesses the same properties in other climates, the several species being everywhere among the most potent acrid poisons in their respective regions. The Arum seguinum, or dumb cane of the West Indies, is so active that two drachms of the juice have been known to prove fatal in a few hours.[1] It is not a little remarkable that the acridity of the arum is lost not merely by drying, but likewise by distillation. I have observed that when the roots are distilled with a little water, neither the distilled water nor the residuum possesses acridity. Reinsch says he has eaten powder of arum root, which, though not acrid to the taste, produced severe burning of the throat not long after it was swallowed.[2] Of Poisoning with Gamboge.
The familiar pigment and purgative gamboge is one of the pure acrids, and possesses considerable activity. It appears from the researches of Orfila,[3] some experiments by Schubarth,[4] and various earlier inquiries quoted by Wibmer,[5] that two drachms will kill a sheep; that a drachm and a half will kill a dog if retained by a ligature on the gullet, while much larger doses have little effect without this precaution, as the poison is soon vomited; that an ounce has little effect on the horse; that eighteen grains will prove fatal to the rabbit within twenty-four hours; and that the symptoms are such as chiefly indicate an irritant action. Orfila farther found that it produces intense spreading inflammation when applied to a recent wound, and in this way may occasion death as quickly and with as great certainty as when administered internally.
Gamboge in its action on man is well known to be one of the most certain and active of the drastic cathartics, from three to seven grains being sufficient to cause copious watery diarrhœa, commonly with smart colic. Larger doses will induce hypercatharsis. A drachm has proved fatal, as is exemplified by a case in the German Ephemerides where the symptoms were excessive vomiting, purging, and faintness.[6]
Under this head are probably to be arranged the repeated cases, which have lately occurred in this country, of fatal poisoning with a noted quack nostrum, Morison's pills. Almost every physician in extensive practice has met with cases of violent hypercatharsis occasioned by the incautious use of these pills; and three instances are now on record where death was clearly occasioned by them.[7] No
- ↑ Descourtils. Flora Médicale des Antilles, iii. 57.
- ↑ Buchner's Repertorium, lxviii. 80.
- ↑ Toxicologie Gén. ii.
- ↑ Horn's Archiv für Mediz. Erfahrung, 1824, i. 65.
- ↑ Die Wirkung der Arzneim. und Gifte, ii. 388.
- ↑ Acta Curios. Nat. Dec. I. Ann. viii. p. 139.
- ↑ Trial of Webb. Lond. Med. Gaz. xiv. 612. Inquest on Rebecca Cross. Ibidem, 759. Case by Drs. Labatt and Stokes. Dublin Journ. of Med. and Chem. Science, iv. 237.
