[202] Centralblatt. f. Gynäkologie, ii. 14, 1878.
[203] A practitioner in Calcutta injected into the bowel of a boy, aged 5, an enema of diluted carbolic acid, which, according to his own statement, was 1 part in 60, and the whole quantity represented 144 grains of the acid. The child became insensible a few minutes after the operation, and died within four hours. There was no post-mortem examination; the body smelt strongly of carbolic acid.—Lancet, May 19, 1883.
§ 225. The symptoms of carbolic acid poisoning admit of considerable variation from those already described. The condition is occasionally that of deep coma. The convulsions may be general, or may affect only certain groups of muscles. Convulsive twitchings of the face alone, and also muscular twitchings only of the legs, have been noticed. In all cases, however, a marked change occurs in the urine. Subissi[204] has noted the occurrence of abortion, both in the pig and the mare, as a result of carbolic acid, but this effect has not hitherto been recorded in the human subject.
[204] L’Archivio della Veterinaria Ital., xi., 1874.
It has been experimentally shown by Küster, that previous loss of blood, or the presence of septic fever, renders animals more sensitive to carbolic acid. It is also said that children are more sensitive than adults.
The course of carbolic acid poisoning is very rapid. In 35 cases collected by Falck, in which the period from the taking of the poison to the moment of death was accurately noted, the course was as follows:—12 patients died within the first hour, and in the second hour 3; so that within two hours 15 died. Between the third and the twelfth hour, 10 died; between the thirteenth and the twenty-fourth hour, 7 died; and between the twenty-fifth and the sixtieth hour, only 3 died. Therefore, slightly over 71 per cent. died within twelve hours, and 91·4 per cent. within the twenty-four hours.