In the remarkable trial at the Central Criminal Court, in 1862, of Margaret Wilson (Reg. v. Marg. Wilson), who was convicted of the murder of a Mrs. Somers, the evidence given rendered it fairly probable that the prisoner had destroyed four people at different dates by colchicum. The symptoms in all four cases were—burning pain in the throat and stomach, intense thirst, violent vomiting and purging, coldness and clamminess of the skin, excessive depression, and great weakness. One victim died on the second day, another on the fifth, a third on the eighth, and the fourth on the fourteenth day. Schroff witnessed a case in which a man took 2 grms. (nearly 31 grains) of the corms; in one and a half hours he experienced general malaise; on the next day there were flying muscular pains, which at length were concentrated in the diaphragm, and the breathing became oppressed; there was also pain in the neighbourhood of the duodenum, the abdomen was inflated with gas; there was a sickly feeling and faintness. Then came on a sleepy condition, lasting several hours, followed by fever, with excessive pain in the head, noises in the ears, and delirium; there was complete recovery, but the abdomen continued painful until the fifth day.
In another instance, a gentleman, aged 50,[551] had taken twenty-eight of Blair’s gout-pills in four and a half days for the relief of a rheumatic affection. He suffered from nausea, griping pains in the belly, considerable diarrhœa, vomiting, and hiccough; towards the end there was stupor, convulsive twitchings of the muscles, paralysis, and death. The fatal illness lasted fourteen days; he was seen by three medical men at different dates—the first seems to have considered the case one of diarrhœa, the second one of suppressed gout; but Dr. C. Budd was struck with the similarity of the symptoms to those from an acrid poison, and discovered the fact that the pills had been taken. These pills I examined; they were excessively hard, and practically consisted of nothing else than the finely-ground colchicum corms; six pills yielded 8 mgrms. of colchicine, so that the whole twenty-eight would contain 39 mgrms. (3⁄5 grain). Dr. Budd considered that the whole of the pills, which were of a stony hardness, remained in the bowels for some time undigested, so that the ultimate result was the same as if the whole had been taken in one dose.
[551] See Lancet, vol. i., 1881, p. 368.
§ 514. The general symptoms produced by colchicum are—more or less burning pain in the whole intestinal tract, vomiting, diarrhœa, with not unfrequently bloody stools; but sometimes diarrhœa is absent. In single cases tenesmus, dysuria, and, in one case, hæmaturia have been noted. The respiration is usually troubled, the heart’s action slowed, the pulse small and weak, and the temperature sinks. In a few cases there have been pains in the limbs; cerebral disturbance is rare; but in two cases (one described ante) there was stupor. Muscular weakness has been observed generally. In a few cases there have been cramps in the calves and in the foot, with early collapse and death.
Post-mortem Appearances.—Schroff found in rabbits poisoned with from ·1 to 1·0 grm. of colchicine, tolerably constantly enteritis and gastritis, and always a thick, pitch-like blood in the heart and veins. Casper has carefully recorded the post-mortem appearances in four labourers, ages ranging from fifteen to forty years, who, finding a bottle of colchicum-wine, and supposing it to be some kind of brandy, each drank a wine-glassful. They all died from its effects. In all four there was great hyperæmia of the brain membranes and of the kidneys. The large veins were filled with thick, dark, cherry-red blood, very similar to that seen in sulphuric acid poisoning. There was an acid reaction of the contents of the stomach. The lungs were moderately congested. The mucous membrane of the stomach of the one who died first was swollen and scarlet with congestion; with the second there was some filling of the vessels at the small curvature; while the stomachs of the third and fourth were quite normal. In 5 cases described by Roux there was also hyperæmia of the brain and kidneys, but no gastritis or enteritis. It is, therefore, evident that there are in man no constant pathological changes from colchicine poisoning.
§ 515. Separation of Colchicine from Organic Matters.—W. Obolonski[552] has recommended the following process:—The finely divided viscera are triturated with powdered glass and digested for twelve hours with alcohol. The liquid is squeezed out and the dry residue washed with alcohol. The extract is concentrated at a temperature not exceeding 80°, and the cooled residue made up to the original volume with alcohol. The filtered liquid is evaporated as before, and this operation repeated until no more clots separate on addition of water. The residue is then dissolved in water, the solution purified by shaking with light petroleum, and the colchicine finally extracted with chloroform.