Treatment. Emetics in vomiting animals. White of egg, common salt largely diluted and followed by milk as antidotal, demulcent and nutritive agent.
POISONING BY BARIUM.
Poisonous salts. Symptoms: spasms, peristalsis, defecation, urination, restlessness, prostration, emesis, weak pulse, coma. Lesions: Moderate congestion of gastro-intestinal mucosa. Treatment: alkaline sulphate, anodynes, demulcents.
The salts of barium are irritant with a special action on the nervous system shown by weakened action of the heart and spasms or paresis of the muscles. The chloride is used in staining wool, the nitrate and chlorate in producing green colors in fireworks, the oxide and carbonate in glassmaking, the chromate by painters, and the sulphate for giving weight and body to various white powders. The chloride is now largely used to stimulate intestinal peristalsis in animals.
Symptoms. Barium chloride hypodermically produces tonic and clonic convulsions, increased peristalsis, discharges of urine and fæces, great restlessness, muscular prostration, emesis in vomiting animals, hurried, shallow respiration, weak, thready pulse, asthenia, coma, and death.
Lesions. There is congestion of the gastric and intestinal mucosa, but this is rarely violent, and corrosion and ulceration are almost unknown. The agent indeed seems to act more energetically upon the nervous system than on the mucosa of the alimentary tract.
Treatment. This consists in giving an alkaline sulphate (sulphate of soda, potash, or magnesia), to precipitate the insoluble barium sulphate, with anodynes (opium) and mucilaginous agents.
POISONING BY IRON.
Sulphate and chloride on empty stomach poisonous. Symptoms: Colic, emesis, rumbling, purging. Treatment: Alkaline or earthy carbonates, tannic acid, albumen. Opium.
Sulphate and chloride are the principal poisonous compounds. Both are comparatively harmless even in large doses taken on a full stomach, while on an empty stomach they may cause violent gastro-enteritis.