Symptoms. Colicy pains, purging, emesis in vomiting animals, more or less tympany and rumbling of the bowels, and surface coldness.
Treatment. Give carbonates of the alkalies, magnesia or lime to precipitate the comparatively insoluble carbonate or oxide; or tannic acid or infusion of oak bark or galls. White of egg, milk and mucilaginous agents, and opium may be required to allay irritation.
POISONING BY CHROMIUM.
Chromic acid, chromate and bichromate of potash. Corrosive. Cause: Gastro-intestinal inflammation, albuminuria, hæmaturia, emaciation, digital ulcers and sloughs, colic. Diarrhœa, vertigo, stiffness, weakness. Lesions. Treatment: Emesis, stomach pump, demulcents.
Bichromate of potash is used extensively in dyeing, calico printing, in the manufacture of porcelain, in chemistry and photography, and to a slight extent in medicine, while lead chromate (chrome yellow) is a valuable pigment. Chromic acid is one of the most potent caustics, at a moderately high temperature dissolving all animal products that may be subjected to it. The chromate and bichromate of potash are only less violently caustic, producing deep and fistulous sores on the hands of the dyers, and acting in a similar manner on the mucosa of the alimentary canal. Twenty-eight grains of the bichromate given by the stomach killed a rabbit in two hours, while 45 grains of the chromate had no such effect (Gmelin). Pelikan found that the bichromate acted like arsenic or mercuric chloride, producing violent irritation of the stomach and intestines, followed by albuminuria, hæmaturia and emaciation: 1 to 5½ grains proved fatal to rabbits and dogs.
Workmen inhaling the bichromate dust, have inflammation, ulceration and finally destruction of the nasal septum, together with skin eruptions and ulcerations.
Horses working at the factories have intractable ulcers of the skin and sometimes shed the hoofs (B. W. Richardson).
Symptoms. Taken by the mouth the bichromate causes colicy pains, emesis in vomiting animals, diarrhœa, great prostration, cold extremities, vertigo, stiffness or weakness of the hind limbs, dilated pupils, weak pulse and death. If protracted the urine may be bloody and albuminous.
Lesions. There is more or less intense congestion of the stomach and intestine, yellow shrunken mucosa, abrasions, sloughs, and ulcers, and congested kidneys with yellow cloudiness of the epithelium of the convoluted tubes and congestion of the glomeruli.
Treatment. Wash out the stomach by emesis or the stomach pump and use albuminous and mucilaginous agents freely.