Symptoms. Vomiting, diarrhœa, ulcerative stomatitis, salivation, vertigo, thirst, dullness, cold surface, colicy pains, trembling, paralysis of the hind quarters, and early death.
Lesions. General inflammation of the gastric and intestinal mucosa, sometimes ulceration especially if the agent has been taken in the solid form. Congestions and infarctions of the lung are not unknown.
Treatment. Encourage vomiting by tickling the fauces, and by the ingestion of tepid water. The best known antidote is tannic acid in any one of its combinations. Solution of tannin, decoctions of oak bark, oak galls, catechu, kino, rumex, sumac, or even strong tea will serve to render it insoluble and non-irritant.
POISONING BY CORROSIVE SALTS OF MERCURY.
Calomel with muriatic acid, corrosive sublimate, mercuric chloride, iodide, nitrate, cyanide. Fatal dose. Symptoms: anorexia, salivation, thirst, emesis, colic, diarrhœa, rumbling, debility, tremors, stupor, death. Lesions: corrosive whitening of gastro-intestinal mucosa, congestion, ulceration, blackening, bloody, glairy ingesta. Treatment: albumen, emesis, demulcents, chlorate of potash, bitters, iron sulphate. Test: copper and muriatic acid.
Calomel in itself cannot be looked on as corrosive, but in ruminants in which it is retained in the system for 3 or 4 days it is largely resolved into mercuric chloride by the free gastric acid and alkaline chlorides. It has therefore been largely excluded from the materia medica of these animals. When in these or other animals it produces corrosive action, the operation is essentially that of corrosive sublimate.
The corrosive salts of mercury likely to be taken by animals are corrosive sublimate now so largely used as an antiseptic, the nitrates and iodides, and cyanides of mercury used as local applications or as antiseptics.
Mercuric chloride may be taken as the type. It has proved fatal to the horse in a dose of 2 drs.; to the ox in 1 to 2 drs.; to the dog in doses of 4 to 6 grs.
Symptoms. Loss of appetite, salivation, thirst, emesis in vomiting animals, colics, diarrhœa, often bloody, weak perhaps imperceptible pulse, hurried breathing, much rumbling of the abdomen, debility, trembling, stupor and death.
Lesions. Escharotic whitening in patches of the mucosa of the mouth, throat, gullet, stomach and intestines, with acute congestion, ulceration and ecchymosis, and sometimes blackening by the formation of the sulphide. The contents of the bowels may be serous or bloody and more or less glairy. Like arsenic, mercuric chloride concentrates its action on the intestinal canal by whatever channel it may have entered the body.