The operation of these bodies, upon the human system, is betrayed by an acrid, styptic, coppery taste, in the mouth; nausea; head-ache; a dry and parched tongue; vomiting; coppery eructations; a cutaneous eruption; violent pains in the bowels; very frequent alvine evacuations, sometimes green, and often bloody and blackish; great and painful distention of the abdomen; small and irregular pulse; heat of skin; ardent thirst; difficult and laborious respiration; hiccup; syncope; cold sweats; convulsions—death. It does not, however, kill so speedily as arsenic, or corrosive sublimate.
Organic Lesions discovered on Dissection.
Where death has been speedily produced by a cupreous poison, dissection will generally discover inflammation, and even gangrene in the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal. Like other poisons of the corrosive class it will also be found to have occasionally extended its inflammatory action to all the coats of the canal, producing sloughs, easily detached, and leaving perforations. Dr. Male has also remarked that inflammation will sometimes be observed in the brain; but that this is not an universal effect of copper poison. It has been stated, that the fluids contained in the primæ viæ are, upon these occasions, very frequently tinged with a green colour.
Chemical Tests by which the presence of the preparations of Copper may be detected.
1. The suspected body is in a solid form.—We have already pointed out the characters by which the principal preparations of copper may be identified. Our judgment, however, upon these occasions will require that confirmation from experiment, which the following processes are calculated to afford.
A. By its reduction to a metallic state. If the copper presents itself in the form of an oxide, it may be easily reduced by heating it, in the usual manner, in contact with some carbonaceous matter; an earthen crucible will furnish the most convenient vessel for the occasion. If the substance has been scraped from a surface of copper, it is probably in the state of carbonate, (natural verdegris,) and may be calcined with charcoal in order to procure the metal. Should the substance in question be true ærugo, we may at once heat it to redness in an earthen crucible, when, without the aid of any carbonaceous matter, we shall obtain metallic copper.
B. By the application of certain reagents, or tests, to its solutions.
It may happen that the quantity of the above substances is not sufficient to allow their metallic reduction by calcination. In that case, we must proceed to obtain a solution; but since neither the oxide, nor the carbonate, is soluble in water, it will be necessary to bring them in contact with concentrated acetic acid, so as to obtain an acetate of copper; which will furnish the following indications with the respective tests.
a. A surface of clean iron. If dipped into the solution will become coated with metallic copper, and appear as if transmuted into that metal.
b. Ammonia. This test, when added in a quantity more than sufficient to saturate any excess of acid, will strike a beautiful blue colour; in the first instance we shall obtain a deep blue precipitate, but this will be redissolved by an excess of alkali. To detect the presence of copper, therefore, in pickles, it is only necessary to cut them into small pieces, and to pour liquid ammonia, diluted with an equal bulk of water, over them in a stopped phial: if the pickles contain the most minute quantity of this metal, the ammonia will assume a blue colour. In the same manner cupreous impregnations may be discovered in the various articles of confectionary above enumerated, and in those foreign conserves which are imported into this country, and usually sold in round boxes.