root.[1] When nux vomica is taken in powder,—the most frequent form in which it has been used,—it adheres with great obstinacy to the inside of the stomach. Consequently whatever means are employed for evacuating the stomach, they must be continued assiduously for a considerable time. If the patient is not attacked with spasms in two hours, he will generally be safe.
M. Donné of Paris has stated that he has found iodine, bromine, and chlorine to be antidotes for poisoning with the alkaloid of nux vomica, as well as for the other vegetable alkaloids. Iodine, chlorine, and bromine, he says, form with the alkaloids compounds which are not deleterious,—two grains and a half of the iodide, bromide, and chloride of strychnia, having produced no effect on a dog. Animals which had taken one grain of strychnia or two grains of veratria, did not sustain any harm, when tincture of iodine was administered immediately afterwards. But the delay of ten minutes in the administration of the antidote rendered it useless. In the compounds formed by these antidotes with the alkaloids, the latter are in a state of chemical union, and not decomposed. Sulphuric acid separates strychnia, for example, from its state of combination with chlorine, iodine, or bromine, and forms sulphate of strychnia, with its usual poisonous qualities.[2] It remains to be proved that the same advantages will be derived from the administration of these antidotes in the instance of poisoning with the crude drug, nux vomica, as in poisoning with its alkaloid.
In general little difficulty will be encountered in recognizing a case of poisoning with nux vomica. Tetanus or locked-jaw is the only disease which produces similar effects. But that disease never proves so quickly fatal as the rapid cases of poisoning with nux vomica; and it never produces the symptoms of irritation observed in the slower cases. Besides, the fits of natural tetanus are almost always slow in being formed; while nux vomica brings on perfect fits in an hour or less. It is right to remember, however, that nux vomica may be given in small doses, frequently repeated, and gradually increased, so as to imitate exactly the phenomena of tetanus from natural causes. Medical men will be at no loss to discover, on reflection, how the preparations of this drug may be rendered formidable secret poisons. Of Poisoning with the St. Ignatius Bean and Upas Tieuté.
The Strychnos Sancti Ignatii, or St. Ignatius bean, contains about three times as much strychnia as nux vomica, namely, from twelve to eighteen parts in the 1000. It is very energetic. Dr. Hopf has mentioned an instance of a man, who was attacked with tetanus of several hours' duration after taking the powder of half a bean in brandy, and who seems to have made a narrow escape.[3]
