seven grains of Ittner's acid, this dose was given at once to the other dog. Immediately it fell down in convulsions, violent opisthotonos ensued, and in half a minute the convulsive stage was followed by flaccidity, imperceptible respiration, and failing pulse. The cold affusion was immediately resorted to, but at first without any amendment. After the second affusion, however, the opisthotonos returned, and was accompanied by cries; and on the remedy being repeated every fifteen minutes, the breathing gradually became easier and easier, the spasms abated, and in a few hours the animal was quite well.[1] Professor Orfila repeated Dr. Herbst's experiments, with analogous results; but he considers the cold affusion inferior to chlorine.[2]—It is probably advantageous to apply the cold water rather in the form of cold douche to the head and spine than to the body at large. Dr. Robinson of Sunderland found that rabbits, which had taken doses adequate to occasion death, might be saved by pouring on the hindhead and along the spine cold water impregnated with common salt and nitre.[3] A case, which seems to have been cured in this way, has been published by Mr. Banks of Lowth. A young woman took by mistake a solution containing very nearly a grain of real acid, and immediately became insensible and convulsed. Ordinary stimulants were of no use. But in fifteen minutes, when the convulsions had ceased, and she lay in a state of complete coma and general paralysis, the cold douche on the head first renewed the convulsions, then strengthened the pulse and restored some appearance of consciousness, and finally roused her, so that in a few hours she was quite well.[4]
It is probable, that bleeding from the jugular vein deserves more attention as a remedy than it has yet received. The right side of the heart is almost invariably found much gorged with blood in animals examined at the moment of death; and the contractions of the heart, in such circumstances imperfect or arrested altogether, have often been observed by experimentalists to be instantly restored on promptly removing the state of turgescence. Accordingly Dr. Cormack found that a dog, at the point of death after receiving a fatal dose of the acid, was speedily roused and eventually saved by bleeding from the jugular vein.[5] And in a careful inquiry by Dr. Lonsdale, it was ascertained that the turgescence of the heart might be effectually diminished in this way, and that recovery might frequently be accomplished when the poison was otherwise amply sufficient to have occasioned speedy death.[6] In a case treated by Magendie, that of a young lady poisoned by too large a medicinal dose, the chief remedies were ammonia and blood-letting from the jugular vein; and she recovered.[7]
- ↑ Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie, 1828, p. 208.
- ↑ Annales d'Hyg. Publ. et de Méd. Lég. i. 518.
- ↑ Buchner's Repertorium für die Pharmacie, lxxv. 403.
- ↑ Edinburgh Med and Surg. Journal, xlviii. 44.
- ↑ Prize Thesis "On the Presence of Air in the Organs of Circulation." Edinburgh, 1837.
- ↑ Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, li. 57.
- ↑ Formulaire pour les Nouveaux Médicamens.
