company was at first found not entitled to refuse payment,—not, however, on the ground that the habit of opium-eating is harmless to longevity,—but chiefly on a technical ground, implying that they did not make inquiry into his habits with the care usually observed by insurance companies, and were therefore to be understood as accepting the life at a venture. A new trial was granted by the court on the ground of the judge's charge having been not according to evidence; but on this occasion the parties compromised the case.[1]
The previous remarks on the symptoms of poisoning with opium in man have been confined to its effects when swallowed. But it was mentioned under the head of its mode of action, that this poison has been known to act with energy upon animals through every channel by which it can be introduced into the system. It is natural to expect that the same will be the case with man also.
The only other modes in which poisoning with opium is reported to have been produced in man, besides administration by the mouth, have been by injections into the anus, by application to the skin deprived of its cuticle, perhaps even also to the unbroken skin, and by its introduction into the external opening of the ear.
In the Journal de Chimie Médicale, an instance is shortly noticed of a lady who was poisoned by the administration of too strong an anodyne injection prepared by herself from fresh poppy-heads. She recovered.[2]
It is generally believed in France that opium acts more energetically through the medium of the rectum, than through the stomach. Orfila in particular has endeavoured to establish this proposition by experiments on animals, and quotations from cases recorded by some authors of its action upon man.[3] But neither the experiments nor the quotations appear to me satisfactory; and the rule they go to support is completely at variance with the practice pursued in the medicinal administration of the drug in Britain. It is the custom to give at least twice as much in an enema as in a draught. I have given by injection, without producing more than the usual somnolency, one drachm and even two drachms by measure of laudanum, a dose which, were Orfila's statement correct, would prove fatal.
As to the action of opium through the skin when deprived of its cuticle, I am not acquainted with any fatal case of the kind, but have no doubt that such may happen. One of my friends very nearly lost his life in the way alluded to. He had applied an opium-poultice to the scrotum to allay the violent irritation caused by a blister, and fell into a state of profound sopor, which was luckily interrupted by a visitor, so that the cause was discovered before it was too late. An instance of the same kind has also been published by M. Pelletan. A child two months old very nearly perished, in consequence of a cerate containing fifteen drops of laudanum having been kept for twenty-four hours on a slight excoriation produced by a fold of the skin. When the cause of illness was discovered, the child had been
