renders it immediately insoluble, or one which exerts upon the body an action contrary to that excited by the poison, that is, a powerful stimulant action on the nervous system. Hence all such remedies as oil, milk, soap, coffee, treacle, turpentine, at one time thought serviceable, are quite inert.[1]
Antidotes have hitherto been chiefly sought for among the powerful, diffusible stimulants. And it is plain, that even although a chemical antidote were known, a stimulant antidote is indispensable also, because the mischief done, before the poison can be rendered inert, is generally sufficient to cause death, unless counteracted by treatment.
Of the diffusible stimulants, ammonia is considered by many the most energetic antidote. The first who made careful experiments with it was Mr. John Murray of London; and he was so convinced of its efficacy, that he expressed himself ready to swallow a dose of the acid large enough to prove fatal, provided a skilful person were beside him to administer the antidote.[2] The favourable results obtained by Murray were afterwards confirmed by M. Dupuy.[3] Afterwards, however, the efficacy of ammonia was called in question. Orfila stated in the third edition of his Toxicology that he had several times satisfied himself of the complete inutility of this as well as many other antidotes.[4] And Dr. Herbst of Göttingen made some careful experiments, from which he concludes that ammonia, though useful when the dose of poison is not large enough to kill, and even capable of making an animal that has taken a fatal dose jump up and run about for a little, yet will never save its life.[5] But farther experiments by Orfila have led him to modify his former statement, and to admit, that, although liquid ammonia is of no use when introduced into the stomach, yet if the vapour from it is inhaled, life may sometimes be preserved, provided the dose of the poison be not large enough to act with great rapidity. He remarked, that when from eight to fourteen drops of the medicinal acid were given to dogs of various sizes, they died in the course of fifteen minutes if left without assistance, but were sometimes saved by being made to inhale ammoniacal water, and recovered completely in little more than an hour.[6] As this is very nearly the conclusion to which Mr. Murray was led by his experiments performed in 1822, it is rather extraordinary, that his name, as the undoubted discoverer of the remedy, has never been mentioned by the Parisian Professor. Buchner, it is right to add, had found this remedy useful in the same year in which Mr. Murray's experiments were made.[7] A gentleman who took an over-dose of two drachms of hydrocyanic acid while using it medicinally, and who seems to have been in great danger, owed his recovery to the assiduous use of carbonate of ammonia held to the nostrils, and spirit of ammonia internally. Relief was obtained im-*
- ↑ Coullon, Recherches sur l'Acide Hydracyanique, 225, et passim.
- ↑ Edin. Philosoph. Journal, vii. 124 and Edin. Journal of Science, ii. 214.
- ↑ Archives Gén. de Méd. xi. 30.
- ↑ Toxicologie Gén. ii. 167.
- ↑ Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie, 1828, p. 208.
- ↑ Annales d'Hyg. Publ. et de Méd. Lég. i. 511.
- ↑ Repertorium für die Pharmacie, xii. 144.
