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[MEMORANDA ON POISONS.]
[WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.]
Tanner’s Practice of Medicine.
Fifth American from the Sixth London Edition. Greatly Enlarged and Improved.
Price, bound in cloth, $6 00; in leather, $7 00.
Tanner’s Practical Treatise on The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood.
Third American Edition, Revised and Enlarged, by Alfred Meadow, M. D.
Octavo. Cloth, $3 50.
Tanner’s Index of Diseases and their Treatment.
With upwards of 500 Formulæ for Medicines, Baths, Mineral Waters, Climates for Invalids, etc., etc.
Octavo. Price, $3 00.
MEMORANDA
ON
POISONS.
BY THE LATE
THOMAS HAWKES TANNER, M.D., F.L.S.
THIRD AND COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION.
PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY & BLAKISTON.
1872.
HENRY B. ASHMEAD, PRINTER.
[EDITOR’S PREFACE.]
The present edition of Dr. Tanner’s “Memoranda on Poisons” is in some respects almost a new book. It was, as will be seen by the Author’s Preface to the last Edition, Dr. Tanner’s object to furnish the practitioner with a useful guide to his duties in cases of poisoning. Experience has, however, shown that the book is more useful to the student than to the practitioner; and, with a view to render it still more valuable to the former, it has in great measure been remodelled. Whilst, therefore, due attention has been paid to what might be called the clinical aspects of poisoning, its chemical bearings have been more closely attended to; and the more important and reliable tests have in each instance been given, as have also the more important processes for separating poisons from organic admixture. Sick of the old and clumsy classification of poisons into Irritants, Narcotics, and Narcotico-Irritants, the editor has endeavored to form some more rational groups of toxic agents. These groups are, it is true, quite provisional; and they are somewhat similar to those adopted by Dr. Guy in his admirable textbook on Forensic Medicine. They have, however, been worked out independently, whether they be worth anything or no. Briefly they are these:—
Corrosives.—Simple Irritants, Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal.—Irritant Gases.—Specific Irritants, Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal.—Neurotics: subdivided into Narcotics, Anæsthetics, Inebriants, Delirants, Convulsives, Hyposthenisants, Depressants, Asphyxiants,—and Abortives.
Such a grouping is far from perfect; but it would be impossible to have anything worse than that still in general use. It is with the hope of rendering this little volume more generally useful these changes have been made: a reason at all times all-powerful with its lamented Author.
A. S.
[AUTHOR’S PREFACE]
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
These Memoranda are intended to refresh the memory of the practitioner on a subject which is not brought under his notice so frequently as many other departments of medicine. They are especially adapted to show at a glance the treatment to be adopted in each particular instance of poisoning to which a medical man is liable to be summoned.
There seems reason to fear that the crime of slow poisoning is more extensively practised in the present day than is generally believed. The study of the following pages will, it is hoped, put the physician on his guard; and prevent his attributing to natural disease symptoms due to the villainous administration of deadly drugs.
Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square.
[CONTENTS.]
| [CHAPTER I.] | PAGE |
| Definition and Mode of Action of Poisons | 13 |
| [CHAPTER II.] | |
| Diagnosis of Poisoning—Duties of the Practitioner | 19 |
| [CHAPTER III.] | |
| Duties of the Practitioner—Treatment of Poisoning | 24 |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | |
| Detection of Poisons | 28 |
| [CHAPTER V.] | |
| Classification of Poisons | 32 |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | |
| The Concentrated Mineral Acids | 36 |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | |
| The Corrosive Vegetable Acids | 43 |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | |
| The Caustic Alkalies and their Carbonates: Potash, Soda, Ammonia | 48 |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | |
| Salts of the Alkalies and Alkaline Earths | 52 |
| [CHAPTER X.] | |
| Salts of the Metals: Zinc—Silver—Tin—Bismuth—Chrome—Iron | 54 |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | |
| Simple Vegetable and Animal Irritants | 57 |
| [CHAPTER XII.] | |
| Irritant Gases | 59 |
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | |
| Iodine and Iodide of Potassium | 61 |
| [CHAPTER XIV.] | |
| Phosphorus | 63 |
| [CHAPTER XV.] | |
| Arsenic and its Compounds | 66 |
| [CHAPTER XVI.] | |
| Antimonial Compounds | 78 |
| [CHAPTER XVII.] | |
| Mercury and its Compounds | 81 |
| [CHAPTER XVIII.] | |
| Preparations of Lead | 85 |
| [CHAPTER XIX.] | |
| Salts of Copper | 89 |
| [CHAPTER XX.] | |
| Specific Vegetable Irritants | 92 |
| [CHAPTER XXI.] | |
| Specific Animal Irritants.—Cantharides | 92 |
| [CHAPTER XXII.] | |
| Narcotics.—Neurotics, acting on the Brain and producing Sleep: Opium | 95 |
| [CHAPTER XXIII.] | |
| Anæsthetics.—Neurotics acting on the Brain and producing Insensibility: Chloroform—Chloral—Bichloride of Methylene—Ether—Amylene—Nitrous Oxide | 102 |
| [CHAPTER XXIV.] | |
| Inebriants.—Neurotics acting on the Brain and producing Intoxication: Alcohol—Nitro-Benzole—Cocculus Indicus—Fungi, &c. | 108 |
| [CHAPTER XXV.] | |
| Delirants.—Neurotics acting on the Brain and producing Delirium: Hyoscyamus—Belladonna—Stramonium—Datura alba—Nightshade | 112 |
| [CHAPTER XXVI.] | |
| Convulsives.—Neurotics producing Convulsions: Nux Vomica—Brucia—Strychnia | 116 |
| [CHAPTER XXVII.] | |
| Hyposthenisants.—Neurotics producing Death by Syncope: Aconite—Prussic Acid | 122 |
| [CHAPTER XXVIII.] | |
| Depressants.—Neurotics producing marked depression of the Heart’s Action: Digitalis—Calabar Beans—Tobacco—Hemlock | 129 |
| [CHAPTER XXIX.] | |
| Asphyxiants.—Noxious Gases, producing Neurotic Symptoms | 134 |
| [CHAPTER XXX.] | |
| Abortives.—Substances producing Abortion | 137 |
| [Appendix] | 139 |
| [Index] | 151 |