[289] Annuaire de Thérap., 1874, p. 109; Schuchardt in Maschka’s Handbuch; also Schmidt’s Jahrbuch, 1846, Bd. 51, S. 101.
The following interesting case came under the observation of Professor Magnus Huss:—A man, thirty-nine years old, married, was admitted into the Seraphin-Lazareth, Stockholm, on the 2nd of February 1842. He had been occupied three years in the manufacture of phosphorus matches, and inhabited the room in which the materials were preserved. He had always been well-conducted in every way, and in good health, until a year previously, when a large quantity of the material for the manufacture of the matches accidentally caught fire and exploded. In his endeavours to extinguish the flames, he breathed a large quantity of the vapour, and he fell for a time unconscious. The spine afterwards became so weak that he could not hold himself up, and he lost, in a great measure, power over his legs and arms. On admission, his condition was as follows:—He could make a few uncertain and staggering steps, his knees trembled, his arms shook, and if he attempted to grasp anything when he lay in bed, there were involuntary twitchings of groups of muscles. There was no pain; the sensibility of the skin was unchanged; he had formication in the left arm; the spine was neither sensitive to pressure, nor unusually sensitive to heat (as, e.g., to the application of a hot sponge); the organs of special sense were not affected, but his speech was somewhat thick. He lived to 1845 in the same condition, but the paralysis became worse. There does not seem to have been any autopsy.
The effects of phosphorus vapour may be still further elucidated by one of Eulenberg’s[290] experiments on a rabbit. The vapour of burning phosphorus, mixed with much air, was admitted into a wooden hutch in which a strong rabbit sat. After 5 mgrms. of phosphorus had been in this manner consumed, the only symptoms in half an hour were salivation, and quickened and somewhat laboured respiration. After twenty-four hours had elapsed there was sudden indisposition, the animal fell as if lifeless, with the hind extremities stretched out, and intestinal movements were visible; there was also expulsion of the urine. These epileptiform seizures seem to have continued more or less for twelve days, and then ceased. After fourteen days the experiment was repeated on the same rabbit. The animal remained exposed to the vapour for three-quarters of an hour, when the epilepsy showed itself as before, and, indeed, almost regularly after feeding. Between the attacks the respiration was slowed. Eight weeks afterwards there was an intense icterus, which disappeared at the end of ten weeks.
[290] Gewerbe Hygiene, p. 255.
§ 287. Chronic phosphorus poisoning has frequently been noticed in persons engaged either in the manufacture of phosphorus or in its technical application. Some have held that the symptoms are due to an oxidation product of phosphorus rather than to phosphorus itself; but in one of Eulenberg’s experiments, in which a dove was killed by breathing phosphorus fumes evolved by phosphorus oil, phosphorus was chemically recognised in the free state in the lungs. The most constant and peculiar effect of breathing small quantities of phosphorus vapour is a necrosis of the lower jaw. There is first inflammation of the periosteum of the jaw, which proceeds to suppuration and necrosis of a greater or smaller portion. The effects may develop with great suddenness, and end fatally. Thus Fournier and Olliver[291] relate the case of a girl, fourteen years old, who, after working four years in a phosphorus manufactory, was suddenly affected with periostitis of the upper jaw, and with intense anæmia. An eruption of purpuric spots ensued, and she died comatose. There is now little doubt, that minute doses of phosphorus have a specific action on the bones generally, and more especially on the bones of the jaw. Wegner[292] administered small daily doses to young animals, both in the state of vapour, and as a finely-divided solid. The condition of the bones was found to be more compact than normal, the medullary canals being smaller than in healthy bone, the ossification was quickened. The formation of callus in fractured limbs was also increased.