in five minutes, with precisely the same symptoms.[1] A short notice of what appears to have been a similar case is given in the Annales de Chimie. The person was a chemist's servant, who swallowed a large quantity of the alcoholic solution by mistake for a liqueur, the poison having been accidentally left on the table by her master, who had been showing it as a curiosity to some friends. No account is given of the symptoms, farther than that she died apoplectic in two minutes.[2] To these cases may be also added a short notice of the French physician's case mentioned at the commencement of this chapter. It will convey a good idea of the operation of the poison when not quite sufficient to kill. Very soon after swallowing a tea-spoonful of the diluted acid he felt confusion in the head, and soon fell down insensible, with difficult breathing, a small pulse, a bloated countenance, dilated insensible pupils, and locked jaw. Afterwards he had several fits of tetanus, one of them extremely violent. In two hours and a half he began to recover his intellects and rapidly became sensible; but for some days he suffered much from ulceration of the mouth and violent pulmonary catarrh, which had evidently been excited by the ammonia given for the purpose of rousing him. This gentleman had eructations with the odour of the acid three or four hours after he took it; and during the earlier symptoms the same odour was exhaled by his breath.[3] The hydrocyanic odour of the breath is of course an important distinguishing character, which would appear, from the observations of Dr. Lonsdale on animals,[4] to occur more frequently than might be supposed from the silence observed on the subject by the reporters of cases.
Hydrocyanic acid is not considered a cumulative poison,—that is, the continued use of frequent small doses is not believed to possess the power recognised in iodine, mercury, and foxglove, of gradually and silently accumulating in the body, and then suddenly breaking out with dangerous or fatal violence. The frequent experience of practitioners in this and other countries seems to prove that hydrocyanic acid possesses no such property. It is right at the same time to mention, that a case published by Dr. Baumgärtner of Freyburg has been thought by some[5] to establish the reverse. A man had taken for two months, on account of chronic catarrh, ten drops of Ittner's acid daily in doses of one grain, without experiencing the slightest toxicological effect. At length he was found one morning in bed apparently labouring under the poisonous operation of the acid. He had headache, blindness, dilated insensible pupil, feeble irregular pulse, occasional suspension of the breathing, and rapidly increasing insensibility. The cold affusion and ammonia were immediately resorted to, and at first with advantage. But in no long time spasms commenced in the toes, and gradually affected the rest of the body, till at length violent fits of general tetanus were formed, lasting for six or ten minutes, and alternating in the intervals with coma. Vene-*
