pure and at once, than is usually taken by those among whom poisoning in the second degree chiefly occurs. When swallowed in large quantity, as by persons who have taken foolish wages on their prowess in drinking, there is seldom much preliminary excitement; coma approaches in a few minutes and soon becomes profound, as in apoplexy. The face is then sometimes livid, more generally ghastly pale; the breathing stertorous, and of a spirituous odour; the pupils sometimes much contracted, more commonly dilated and insensible; and if relief is not speedily procured, death takes place,—generally in a few hours, and sometimes immediately. According to Mr. Bedingfield, who witnessed many cases of poisoning with rum at Liverpool, which always follow the arrival of the West India vessels, the patient will recover if the iris remains contractile; but if it is dilated and motionless on the approach of a light, recovery is very improbable.[1]
A case is briefly alluded to by Orfila of a soldier, who drank eight pints of brandy for a wager, and died instantly.[2] A case of the same kind is quoted by Professor Marx.[3] Another, which happened in the person of a London cabman, is noticed in a French Journal. The man, for a bribe of five shillings, drank at a draught a whole bottle of gin; and in a few minutes he dropped down dead.[4] Similar accidents occur not infrequently in this country; but I have not met with any fully described by authors. A case of the less rapid variety of the present form occurred at the Infirmary here in 1820. A man stole a bottle of whiskey; and, being in danger of detection, took what he thought the surest way of concealing it, by drinking it all. He died in four hours with symptoms of pure coma.
Convulsions are not common in such cases. I have seen a remarkable example, however, in which the coma was accompanied with constant alternating opisthotonos and emprosthotonos. The subject was a boy who had been induced to drink raw whisky by an acquaintance, and had been two hours insensible before I saw him. The stomach-pump, which was immediately applied, brought away a large quantity of fluid with a strong spirituous odour; and he recovered his senses in fifteen minutes, but remained very drowsy for the rest of the day.
Such are the forms of poisoning with spirits usually admitted by authors. But it also appears to act sometimes as an irritant. After its ordinary narcotic action passes off, another set of symptoms occasionally appear, which indicate inflammation of the alimentary canal. Cases of this kind are exceedingly rare; yet they have been met with, as the following extract shows. "A young man at Paris had been drinking brandy immoderately for several successive days, when at length he was attacked with shivering, nausea, feverishness, pain in the stomach, vomiting of everything he swallowed except
