Remarks.
Pure aconitia is perhaps the most deadly poison with which we are at present acquainted, and all the preparations of aconite are excessively poisonous. Unless employed with extreme caution they are very dangerous, and should on no account be used, even for external application, except with the advice of, or by a medical man.[226]
The urgent necessity for an alteration in the law at present relating to the sale of poisons, and for the introduction of a clause placing some restrictions on the sale of patent medicines containing poisons, is strikingly shown by the fact that such preparations as “Neuraline” are now sold without any restriction whatever. Indeed, as the law at present stands, the most virulent poisons, if contained in, or sold as patent medicines, can be obtained by any ordinary person with less difficulty than the same poisons can be purchased, under their own proper names, by a medical man. Neuraline, a patent medicine containing a preparation of aconite, was brought rather prominently forward, in 1872, in connection with the death of the Hon. G. C. Vernon, the question arising as to whether the too frequent use of neuraline by the deceased, for pains in his head, had been the cause of death.[227]
The phosphoric acid test for aconitia, referred to by Mr. Montagu Williams during the trial of Dr. Lamson, is described in Professor Flückiger’s work (“Pharmaceutische Chemie”; Berlin, 1879); but it is at the same time mentioned that crystallized aconitia gives only an extremely faint reaction, and crystallized nitrate of aconitia none at all.
It has been already pointed out (p. 573) that this test is one which cannot be relied on, and that the violet colour is believed to be due to impurities present rather than to aconitia itself.
The internal administration of aconitia in very small doses is recommended, in cases of dysentery and typhoid fever, by a writer in the Journal of Medicine and Dosimetric Therapeutics, according to the method of Dr. Ad. Burggraeve, a publication edited by Dr. T. L. Phipson. Dr. Burggraeve’s method (or “dosimetry,” as it is called) is in several respects similar to homœopathy, and the journal in question cannot be regarded as a generally accepted authority.
In his speech for the defence, Mr. Montagu Williams referred to the supposed existence of cadaveric alkaloids or ptomaines, and to the absence of special chemical tests for aconitia. With reference to the ptomaines, see Chap. 1, p. 12. The objection, that there is no characteristic chemical test for aconitia, is to a great extent deprived of its force when one remembers that aconitia can be proved to be an alkaloid by its deportment with the general alkaloidal re-agents; that the taste test alone will distinguish it from all other alkaloids; and that it exerts a powerful and distinctive action on small animals, and ultimately destroys them.
It must not be forgotten that the remark of Lord Coleridge’s, quoted by Mr. Montagu Williams, is nothing more than an expression of personal opinion, by an eminent lawyer on a purely scientific subject; valuable, no doubt, but not necessarily infallible.
The statement of Messrs. Allen & Hanbury’s assistant, that aconitia is yellowish-white (p. 544), does not hold good of all samples: the colour of the alkaloids varies with their degree of purity, and pure aconitia is not less white than pure atropia.
Full details of the case of poisoning by aconitia, referred to by Dr. Stevenson (p. 534), are to be found in Schmidt’s Jahrbücher der In-und Ausländischen gesammten Medicin, edited by Dr. Adolf Winter, vol. 189, p. 122: the case was originally communicated by T. Haakma Tresling to a Dutch journal (Weekbl. van het Nederl. Tijdschr. voor Geneesk, 16, 1880). The following is a short account of this case.