In some more recent researches Orfila found that the poison is absorbed, and may be detected, like other metallic poisons, in the liver, spleen, and urine. The process for this purpose, applicable also to all organic mixtures, consists in boiling the solids in water acidulated with a twentieth of nitric acid, evaporating the solution to dryness, charring the residue with nitric acid, as directed for copper, boiling the charcoal in diluted nitric acid, and thus obtaining an acid solution of nitrate of bismuth, which may be known by the effects of water and of hydrosulphuric acid.[[1188]]
Orfila remarks, that Camerarius of Tübingen once detected the adulteration of wine with the oxide of bismuth, and that the bakers in some parts of England used to render their bread white and heavy by mixing the trisnitrate with flour; but he has not stated his authority for this accusation. It may be discovered in any such mixture by calcining the suspected substance in a crucible, and then separating the metallic bismuth by means of nitric acid. But the adulteration of bread with bismuth is very questionable, as there are many cheaper methods for effecting the purpose, without adding any thing positively deleterious.
The following is the only case with which I am acquainted of poisoning with the preparations of bismuth in the human subject. A man subject to water-brash took two drachms of the trisnitrate with a little cream of tartar by mistake for a mixture of chalk and magnesia. He was immediately attacked with burning in the throat, brown vomiting, watery purging, cramps, and coldness of the limbs, and intermitting pulse, and then with inflammation of the throat, difficult swallowing, dryness of the membrane of the nose, and a constant nauseous metallic taste. On the third day he had hiccup, laborious breathing, and swelling of the hands and face; and suppression of urine was then discovered to have existed from the first. On the fourth day swelling and tension of the belly were added to the pre-existing symptoms, on the fifth day salivation, on the sixth delirium, on the seventh, swelling of the tongue and enormous enlargement of the belly; and on the ninth he expired. The urine continued suppressed till the eighth day.—On inspection of the body it was found that from the back of the mouth to the rectum there were but few points of the alimentary canal free of disease. The tonsils, uvula, pharynx, and epiglottis, were gangrenous, the larynx spotted black, the gullet livid, the stomach very red, with numerous purple pimples, the whole intestinal canal red, and here and there gangrenous, especially at the rectum. The inner surface of the heart was bright red. The kidneys and brain were healthy.[[1189]]
Of Poisoning with Chrome.
The next metal whose properties deserve notice is chrome. As it is now extensively used in the art of dyeing it is necessary to mention its effects, more especially as they are singular. They have been ascertained experimentally with great care by Professor Gmelin of Tübingen. He found that in the dose of a grain the chromate of potass had no effect when injected into the jugular vein of a dog,—that four grains produced constant vomiting, and death in six days without any other striking symptom,—and that ten grains caused instant death by paralysing the heart. Its effects, when introduced under the skin, are still more remarkable. It seems to cause general inflammation of the lining membrane of the air-passages. When a drachm was thrust in the state of powder under the skin of the neck of a dog, the first symptoms were weariness and a disinclination to eat. But on the second day the animal vomited, and a purulent matter was discharged from the eyes. On the third day it became palsied in the hind legs; on the fourth it could not breathe or swallow but with great difficulty; and on the sixth it died. The wound was not much inflamed; but the larynx, bronchi, and minute ramifications of the air tubes contained fragments of fibrinous effusion, the nostrils were full of similar matter, and the conjunctiva of the eyes was covered with mucus. In another dog, an eruption appeared on the back, and the hair fell off.[[1190]]
The effects of the salts of chrome on man have not been well ascertained, but seem to be peculiar. Dr. Schindler of Greifenberg relates the following case of fatal poisoning with bichromate of potash. A colourman having swallowed a solution of it, vomiting was brought on by warm water, soap and oil, and kept up until the discharges ceased to be yellow. The man got apparently well and passed a quiet night; but next morning he felt excessively weary, had stitches in his back and kidneys, passed no urine, and was affected with purging. A restless night followed. On the subsequent morning, he lay motionless and like one fatigued to the extremest degree; in which state he died, fifty-four hours after swallowing the poison. The stomach was healthy, the intestines reddish, the kidneys gorged with blood and marbled internally with dark-red patches, and the bladder empty.[[1191]]—Mr. Wilson of Leeds has described the case of an elderly man who took the poison in the evening, and was found dead about twelve hours afterwards, without any sign of vomiting, purging, or convulsions; and no morbid appearance was found but redness of the villous coat of the stomach, and an inky-like fluid in it, containing a large quantity of bichromate of potash.[[1192]]
To these facts may be added another not less singular, which my late colleague Dr. Duncan informed me has been observed by the workmen in Glasgow, who use the bichromate of potass in dyeing. When this salt was first introduced into the art of dyeing, the workmen who had their hands often immersed in its solution were attacked with troublesome sores on the parts touched by it; and the sores gradually extended deeper and deeper, without spreading, till they sometimes actually made their way through the arm or hand altogether.[[1193]]
Of Poisoning with Zinc.
The compounds of zinc, which have been long used in considerable doses in medicine, have sometimes occasioned serious and even fatal effects. Partly on this account, and partly because one of them, the sulphate of zinc, being the emetic most commonly used in the treatment of poisoning, is apt to complicate various medico-legal analyses, it will be proper to notice both its physiological properties and the mode of detecting it by chemical means.
The only important compound of this metal is the sulphate or white vitriol. As usually sold in the shops, it forms small, prismatic crystals, transparent, colourless, of a very styptic metallic taste, and exceedingly soluble in water. That which is kept by the apothecary is tolerably pure; but there is a salt sometimes met with in commerce which contains an admixture of sulphate of iron, and with which the natural action of the tests for zinc is materially modified.