then moisture of the skin, next profound sleep for some hours, attended with excessive sweating, and finally no ultimate ill consequence except great debility.[1] I am assured by a correspondent, Dr. Jennison of Cambridge, U. S., that a medical friend of his has given 90 grains of camphor four times a day in phrenitis, with safety and advantage.
Professor Wendt of Breslau has related an instance, which proves the irritant action of camphor on man, and likewise the uncertainty of the dose required to act deleteriously. In the case of Mr. Alexander, two scruples would in all probability have proved fatal, had they not been discharged in time by vomiting. In the case now to be noticed, 160 grains were taken in a state of solution in alcohol, and were not vomited; yet the individual recovered. He was a drunkard, who took four ounces of camphorated spirit, prescribed for him as an embrocation. Soon afterwards he was attacked with fever, burning heat of the skin, anxiety, burning pain in the stomach, giddiness, flushed face, dimness of sight, sparks before the eyes, and some delirium. He soon got well under the use of almond oil and vinegar, but did not vomit.[2]
Morbid Appearances.—The morbid appearances caused by camphor have not, so far as I know, been witnessed in man. In dogs examined immediately after death, the heart is no longer contractile, and its left cavities contain arterial blood of a reddish-brown colour. When the poison has been given in fragments, it leaves marks of inflammation in the stomach and intestines. Orfila found these organs much inflamed in such circumstances.[3] Scudery found the membranes of the brain much injected, and the brain itself sometimes softened; the inner membrane of the stomach either very red, or checkered with black, gangrenous-like spots of the size of millet-seeds; the duodenum in the same state; the ureters, urethra, and spermatic cords inflamed; and every organ in the body, even the brain, impregnated with the odour of camphor.[4] Of Poisoning with Cocculus Indicus.
The Menispermum cocculus, Cocculus suberosus, or Anamirta cocculus of botanists, is a creeping plant which grows in the island of Ceylon, on the Malabar coast, and in other parts of the East Indies. Its fruit, which is the only part of the plant hitherto particularly examined, is like a large, rough, grayish-black pea, and is known in the shops by the name of Cocculus indicus. It has a rough, ligneous pericarp, enclosing a pale grayish-yellow, brittle kernel, of a very strong lasting bitter taste. The medical jurist should make himself well acquainted with its external characters, because, besides being occasionally used in medicine, it is a familiar poison for destroying fish, and has also been extensively used by brewers as a substitute
