According to Eulenberg, workmen, exposed for a long period to the vapour of the oxide of antimony, suffer pain in the bladder and a burning sensation in the urethra, and continued inhalation even leads to impotence and wasting of the testicles.[810]
[810] In the first operations of finishing printers’ types, the workmen inhale a metallic dust, which gives rise to effects similar to lead colic; and probably in this case the lead is more active than the associated antimony.
§ 759. Post-mortem Appearances.—The effect of large doses of tartar emetic is mainly concentrated upon the gastro-intestinal mucous membrane. There is an example in the museum of University College Hospital of the changes which resulted from the administration of tartar emetic in the treatment of pneumonia. These are ascribed in the catalogue, in part to the local action of the medicine, and in part to the extreme prostration of the patient. In the preparation (No. 1052) the mucous membrane over the fore border of the epiglottis and adjacent part of the pharynx has been destroyed by sloughing; the ulceration extends into the upper part of the œsophagus. About an inch below its commencement, the mucous membrane has been entirely removed by sloughing and ulceration, the circular muscular fibres being exposed. Above the upper limit of this ulcer, the mucous membrane presents several oval, elongated, and ulcerated areas, occupied by strips of mucous membrane which have sloughed. In other places, irregular portions of the mucous membrane, of a dull ashen-gray colour, have undergone sloughing; the edges of the sloughing portion are of colours varying from brown to black.
It is seldom that so much change is seen in the gullet and pharynx as this museum preparation exhibits; but redness, swelling, and the general signs of inflammation are seldom absent from the stomach and some parts of the intestines. On the lining membrane of the mouth, ulcers and pustules have been observed.
In Dr. Nevin’s experiments on the chronic poisoning of rabbits already referred to, the post-mortem appearances consisted in congestion of the liver in all the rabbits; in nearly all there was vivid redness of the stomach; in two cases there was ulceration; in some, cartilaginous hardness of the pylorus; while, in others, the small intestines presented patches of inflammation. In two of the rabbits the solitary glands throughout the intestines were prominent, yellow in colour, and loaded with antimony. The colon and rectum were healthy, the kidneys congested; the lungs were in most congested, in some actually inflamed, or hepatised and gorged with blood. Bloody extravasations in the chest and abdomen were frequent.
Saikowsky,[811] in feeding animals daily with antimony, found invariably in the course of fourteen to nineteen days fatty degeneration of the liver, and sometimes of the kidney and heart. In the experiment of Caillol and Livon also all the organs were pale, the liver had undergone fatty degeneration, and the lung had its alveoli filled with large degenerated cells, consisting almost entirely of fat. The mesenteric glands also formed large caseous masses, yellowish-white in colour, which, under the microscope, were seen to be composed of fatty cells, so that there is a complete analogy between the action of arsenic and antimony on the body tissues.
[811] Virchow’s Arch. f. path. Anat., Bd. xxv.; also, Centralblatt f. Med. Wissen., No. 23, 1865.