In an Indian case,[593] the symptoms were altogether peculiar, and belonged rather to the convulsive order. A wood-cutter, aged thirty-five, near Kholapore, took, for the purpose of suicide, a little over an ounce of the expressed juice of the oleander. The symptoms began so rapidly that he had not time to walk five yards before he fell insensible; he was brought to the hospital in this state; the face on his arrival was noticed to be flushed, the breathing stertorous, there were violent spasmodic contractions of the whole body, more marked on the left than on the right side. The effect of this was remarkable. During the intervals of the spasm, the patient lay evenly on his back, and when the convulsions commenced the superior contraction of the left side threw him on to the right, in which position he remained during the paroxysm, after the subsidence of which he fell back into his old position. The evacuations were involuntary and watery; the man was insensible, with frequent convulsions of the kind described, for two days, but on the third day became conscious, and made a good recovery.
[593] Transac. of Med. and Phys. Soc. of Bombay, 1859.
In any case of poisoning, the methods by which neriin and oleandrin are separated from the plant can be applied to separate them from the tissues with more or less success. Here, as in all the other digitalin-like glucosides, physiological tests are alone of value in the final identification.
§ 561. The Madagascar Ordeal Poison.—To this group may also belong the poison of the Tanghinia venenifera, a tree in the Island of Madagascar, the fruit of which is used as an ordeal poison. It may be obtained in crystals; it is insoluble in water, and very poisonous. The upas of Singapore is also said to contain with strychnine a glucoside similar to antiarin.
4. SUBSTANCES WHICH, WITH OTHER TOXIC EFFECTS, BEHAVE LIKE THE DIGITALIS.
§ 562. Erythrophlein is an alkaloid, not a glucoside, and is obtained from the bark of the Erythrophlœum guineense (West Africa). It acts on the heart like digitalis, and has also effects similar to picrotoxin.