poisons equal it in subtilty and swiftness. A single drop, applied to the eye of a rabbit, will kill it in nine minutes; and three drops in the same way will kill a strong cat in a minute and a half. Five drops, introduced into the throat of a little dog, began to act in thirty seconds, and proved fatal in one minute. And when two grains, neutralized with thirty drops of weak hydrochloric acid, were injected into the femoral vein of a young dog, it died before there was time to note the interval, so that only two or three seconds at most had elapsed, before all internal signs of life were extinct. This extraordinary rapidity of action seems incompatible with its operation taking place by conveyance of the poison with the blood to the spinal cord. Mr. Blake, as formerly mentioned (p. 15), denies that its action in this way was ever so swift in his hands, and alleges that he could never observe the interval to be shorter than fifteen seconds. If the reader, however, will consult the original account of my experiment,[1] which was made along with Dr. Sharpey, he will see that we could scarcely be mistaken as to the interval in that instance.
Symptoms in Man.—M. Haaf, a French army surgeon, has described a fatal case of poisoning with hemlock, which closely resembled poisoning with opium. The subject of it, a soldier, had partaken along with several comrades of a soup containing hemlock leaves, and appeared to them to drop asleep not long after, while they were conversing. In the course of an hour and a half they became alarmed on being all taken ill with giddiness and headache; and the surgeon of the regiment was sent for. He found the soldier, who had fallen asleep, in a state of insensibility, from which, however, he could be roused for a few moments. His countenance was bloated, the pulse only 30, and the extremities cold. The insensibility became rapidly deeper and deeper, till he died, three hours after taking the soup.[2] His companions recovered.
Dr. Watson has briefly described two cases which were fatal in the same short space of time. The subjects were two Dutch soldiers, who, in common with several of their comrades, took broth made with hemlock leaves and various other herbs. Giddiness, coma, and convulsions were the principal symptoms. The men who recovered were affected exactly as if they had taken opium.[3]
When the dose is not sufficient to prove fatal, there is sometimes paralysis, attended with slight convulsions, as in a case noticed by Orfila.[4] More commonly there is frantic delirium. Matthiol has related an instance of this last description, occurring in the cases of a vine-dresser and his wife, who mistook the roots for parsneps Both of them became in the course of the night so delirious that they ran about the house, knocking themselves against every object which came in their way.[5] Kircher, as quoted by Wibmer, tells a parallel story of two monks who became so raving mad after eating
