POISONING BY CORROSIVE SALTS OF MERCURY.
Calomel with muriatic acid, corrosive sublimate, mercuric chloride, iodide, nitrate, cyanide. Fatal dose. Symptoms: anorexia, salivation, thirst, emesis, colic, diarrhœa, rumbling, debility, tremors, stupor, death. Lesions: corrosive whitening of gastro-intestinal mucosa, congestion, ulceration, blackening, bloody, glairy ingesta. Treatment: albumen, emesis, demulcents, chlorate of potash, bitters, iron sulphate. Test: copper and muriatic acid.
Calomel in itself cannot be looked on as corrosive, but in ruminants in which it is retained in the system for 3 or 4 days it is largely resolved into mercuric chloride by the free gastric acid and alkaline chlorides. It has therefore been largely excluded from the materia medica of these animals. When in these or other animals it produces corrosive action, the operation is essentially that of corrosive sublimate.
The corrosive salts of mercury likely to be taken by animals are corrosive sublimate now so largely used as an antiseptic, the nitrates and iodides, and cyanides of mercury used as local applications or as antiseptics.
Mercuric chloride may be taken as the type. It has proved fatal to the horse in a dose of 2 drs.; to the ox in 1 to 2 drs.; to the dog in doses of 4 to 6 grs.
Symptoms. Loss of appetite, salivation, thirst, emesis in vomiting animals, colics, diarrhœa, often bloody, weak perhaps imperceptible pulse, hurried breathing, much rumbling of the abdomen, debility, trembling, stupor and death.
Lesions. Escharotic whitening in patches of the mucosa of the mouth, throat, gullet, stomach and intestines, with acute congestion, ulceration and ecchymosis, and sometimes blackening by the formation of the sulphide. The contents of the bowels may be serous or bloody and more or less glairy. Like arsenic, mercuric chloride concentrates its action on the intestinal canal by whatever channel it may have entered the body.
Treatment. The mercury should be precipitated in an insoluble form and then eliminated by emesis or by the stomach pump. White of eggs is usually the most available agent producing the albuminate of mercury. This is, however, still soluble in acid and alkaline liquids, in chlorides of potassium, sodium or calcium and even in excess of albumen. Vomiting may be favored by tickling the fauces, or by hypodermic injection of apomorphia. This may be followed by boiled flaxseed or copious drinks of rain water. When the mercury has been largely eliminated the salivation may be controlled by chlorate of potash, and the digestive disorder met by bitters and iron sulphate.
Test for Mercury. Place a few drops of the suspected solution on a clean surface of copper; acidulate with muriatic acid; then touch the copper through the liquid with a piece of zinc; a silver colored stain will be formed easily dissipated by heat.