The effects of tartar-emetic on the skin are worthy of notice; but they have not yet been carefully studied. Some facts tend to show that even its constitutional action may be developed through the sound skin. Mr. Sherwen attempted to prove by experiments on himself and two pupils, that five or seven grains in solution will, when rubbed on the palms, produce in a few hours nausea and copious perspiration.[[1150]] His observations have been confirmed by Mr. Hutchinson.[[1151]] But Savary, a French physician, on repeating these experiments, could remark nothing more than a faint flat taste and slight salivation;[[1152]] and Mr. Gaitskell could not remark any constitutional effect at all.[[1153]] Sometimes it has appeared to cause severe symptoms of irritant poisoning when used in the form of ointment to excite a pustular eruption. An instance of this has been described in a late French Journal.[[1154]] Nay, in the Medical Repository there is a case, in which the external use of tartar-emetic ointment is supposed to have been the cause of death. The subject was an infant, two years old, who, soon after having the spine rubbed with this ointment, was seized with great sickness and frequent fainting, which in forty-eight hours proved fatal.[[1155]] Considering the numerous opportunities which medical men have had of witnessing the effects of tartar-emetic applied in the same manner, and that these are solitary cases, doubts may be entertained whether the irritant symptoms in the one case, or the child’s death in the other, were occasioned in the way supposed.
Although the constitutional action of tartar-emetic is not easily developed through the sound skin, its local effects are severe and unequivocal. When applied to the skin it does not corrode, but excites inflammation, on which account it is much used instead of cantharides. It does not blister; but after being a few days applied, it brings out a number of painful pustules; if it be persevered in, the skin ulcerates; and if it be applied to an ulcerated surface it causes profuse suppuration, or sometimes even sloughing.
Tartar-emetic is one of the substances which appear to possess the property of acting on the infant through the medium of its nurse’s milk. I do not know, indeed, what may be the general experience on this point; but a French physician, M. Minaret, has published a clear case of the kind, in the instance of a young woman who was taking tartar-emetic for pleurisy, and whose infant was attacked with a fit of vomiting immediately after every attempt to suck the breast.[[1156]]
There is some reason to suppose, that the vapours of antimony may prove injurious when inhaled. Four persons, constantly exposed in preparing antimonial compounds to the vapour of antimonious acid and chloride of antimony, were attacked with headache, difficult breathing, stitches in the back and sides, difficult expectoration of viscid mucus, want of sleep and appetite, mucous discharge from the urethra, loss of sexual propensity, atrophy of the testicles, and a pustular eruption on various parts, but especially on the scrotum. They all recovered.[[1157]]
Section III.—Of the Morbid Appearances produced by Tartar-emetic.
The morbid appearances caused by tartar-emetic have not been often witnessed in man.
In M. Récamier’s case there were some equivocal signs of reaction in the brain. The organs in the chest were healthy. The villous coat of the stomach, except near the gullet, where it was healthy, was everywhere red, thickened, and covered with tough mucus. The whole intestines were completely empty. The duodenum was in the same state as the stomach; but the other intestines were in their natural condition.
M. Jules Cloquet observed in the body of a man who died of apoplexy, and who in the course of five days had taken forty grains of tartar-emetic, without vomiting or purging,—that the villous coat of the stomach had a deep reddish-violet colour, with cherry-red spots interspersed; and that the whole small intestines were of a rose-red tint spotted with cherry-red.[[1158]]
The only other dissection I have seen noticed is one by Hoffmann. He says that in a woman poisoned by tartar-emetic he found the stomach gangrenous, and the lungs, diaphragm, and spleen as it were in a state of putrefaction.[[1159]] Little credit can be given to this description.
In animals Schloepfer found the blood always fluid.[[1160]]