were discharged by an emetic: the stools contained eighty; and none were found in the alimentary canal after death. There was never any marked sign of congestion of blood in the head, except flushed face at the beginning.[1] Dr. Droste of Osnaburg has related a fatal case occasioned by a decoction of 125 seeds given to remove colic. In fifteen minutes the patient became delirious, but soon fell apparently fast asleep, and died in seven hours without again awaking.[2]
Dangerous effects may result from the application of the thorn-apple to the skin when deprived of the cuticle. An instance has been lately published of alarming narcotism from the application of the leaves to an extensive burn.[3]
Morbid Appearances.—As to the morbid appearances, Droste found in his case redness of the cardiac end of the stomach, which contained two table-spoonfuls of a pulpy matter mixed with black and white grains, the remains of the teguments of the seeds; and there was also lividity of the back, lividity of the lungs, emptiness of the cavities of the heart, and gorging of the vessels of the brain. Haller says he once found general congestion of the brain and sinuses,[4]—an appearance which may naturally be expected, considering the signs of strong determination of blood towards the head, which often prevail during life. In Mr. Duffin's case, however, the brain was healthy, not congested; the stomach and intestines presented no morbid appearance; and the only unusual appearances observed were a slight blush over the pharynx, larynx, and upper third of the gullet, thickening and swelling of the rima glottidis, and a semi-coagulated state of the blood. Of Poisoning with Tobacco.
A plant of the same natural order with the two former, tobacco, the Nicotiana tabacum of botanists, is familiarly known to be in certain circumstances a virulent poison. Every part of the plant possesses active properties. It has been used as a poison in this country for criminal purposes.
Vauquelin analyzed it some time ago, and procured an acrid volatile principle which he called nicotine.[5] This substance, which was afterwards obtained in a purer state as a crystalline body by Hermbstädt, has been more recently ascertained by MM. Posselt and Reimarus to be nothing else than essential oil of tobacco, which is sold at ordinary temperatures; and they succeeded in procuring another principle which they consider the true nicotina. This is fluid at 29° F., volatile, extremely acrid, alkaline, and capable of forming crystallizable salts with some of the acids.[6] Tobacco then appears to contain an acrid alkaline principle, and an essential oil to which the alkaloid
- ↑ London Medical Gazette, iv. 320.
- ↑ Henke's Zeitschrift für die Staatsarzneikunde, xxxiii. 129.
- ↑ Journal de Chim. Méd. vi. 722.
- ↑ Hist. Stirp. Helvet. Indig. i. 259.
- ↑ Vauquelin—Annales de Chimie, lxxi. 139.
- ↑ Bulletin des Scien. Méd. xii. 177, from Geiger's Magazin für Pharmacie, Nov. und Dec. 1828.
