It would be a fruitless task to examine into the merits of the numerous antidotes which have from time to time been proposed for poisoning with opium. Professor Orfila has examined many of them with great care, such as vinegar, tartaric acid, lemonade, infusion of coffee, decoction of galls, solution of chlorine, camphor, diluents; and he has found them all useless before the poison is expelled from the stomach, with the single exception of decoction of galls. As he remarked that this fluid throws down the active principles of an infusion of opuim, and subsequently found that such a mixture acts more feebly on the animal system than the opiate infusion itself, he thinks the decoction of galls may with propriety be used as an imperfect antidote, till the poison can be evacuated from the stomach.[1] His experiments, however, do not assign to it very material activity as a remedy; and certainly the whole efforts of the physician ought in the first instance to be directed to the removal of the opium, and to keeping the patient roused. When the opium has been completely removed, the vegetable acids and infusion of coffee have been found useful in reviving the patient, and subsequently in subduing sickness, vomiting, and headache; but till the poison is completely removed the administration of acids is worse than useless, provided the opium was given in the solid state, because its solution in the juices of the stomach is accelerated. It has been maintained that iodine, chlorine, and bromine are all antidotes for poisoning with the vegetable alkaloids.[2] Some notice will be taken of this statement in the chapter on Nux Vomica. It has also been lately alleged in the United States that opium has no effect when given with acetate of lead; and an hospital case is reported as having occurred at New York, where the poison was swallowed in this way to the extent of thirty grains, without any injurious effect.[3] There must have been some mistake here, however. When given with acetate of lead in medicinal doses, opium exerts its usual sedative and anodyne action; and indeed there is no chemical or physiological reason why it should not do so.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
OF POISONING WITH HYOSCYAMUS, LACTUCA, AND SOLANUM.
Of Poisoning with Hyoscyamus.—Of the narcotic poisons none
bears so close a resemblance to opium in its properties as the hyoscyamus
or henbane. Several species are poisonous; but the only one
that has been examined with care is the H. niger, from which the extract
of the apothecary is prepared.
The hyoscyamus has been analyzed by various chemists, and found to contain a peculiar alkaloid, in which the properties of the plant
