The carbonate in a state of minute division is scarcely less active than the hydrochlorate, since it is dissolved by the acid juices of the stomach. A drachm killed a dog in six hours; vomiting, expressions of pain, and an approach to insensibility preceded death; and marks of inflammation were found in the stomach.[[1387]] Pelletier made many experiments on the poisonous properties of the carbonate. Fifteen grains of the native carbonate killed one dog in eight hours, and another in fifteen.[[1388]] Dr. Campbell found it to be a dangerous poison, even when applied externally. Twelve grains introduced into a wound in the neck of a cat, excited on the third day languor, slow respiration, and feeble pulse; towards evening the animal became affected with convulsions of the hind-legs and with dilated pupils; and death followed not long afterwards.[[1389]] This substance, before its real nature was known, used at one time to be employed in some parts of England as a variety of arsenic for poisoning rats.
The salts of baryta are absorbed in the course of their action. The chloride has been detected by Dr. Kramer both in the blood and urine by incineration with carbonate of potash, washing the ashes with weak solution of carbonate of potash, dissolving the residue in diluted nitric acid, and testing the solution for baryta.[[1390]] Orfila has also obtained baryta, by his process alluded to above, in the liver, kidneys, and spleen of animals killed by the chloride.[[1391]]
The symptoms produced by the salts of baryta in man have seldom been particularly described. An instance is shortly noticed in the Journal of Science, where an ounce of the hydrochlorate was taken by mistake for Glauber’s salt, and proved fatal. The patient immediately after swallowing it felt a sense of burning in the stomach; vomiting, convulsions, headache, and deafness ensued; and death took place within an hour.[[1392]] A similar case, fatal in two hours, has been related by Dr. Wach of Merseburg. A middle-aged woman who, though generally in good health, had suffered for a day or two from pains in the stomach, took one morning a solution of half an ounce of chloride of barium by mistake for sulphate of soda. She was soon seized with sickness, retching, convulsive twitches of the hands and feet, vomiting of clear mucus, great anxiety, restlessness, and loss of voice; and she died under constant efforts to vomit, and violent convulsive movements, but with her faculties entire.[[1393]]
Unpleasant effects have been observed from too large doses of the chloride administered medicinally. A case is mentioned in the Medical Commentaries of a gentleman who was directed to take a solution as a stomachic, but swallowed one evening by accident so much as seventy or eighty drops. He had soon after profuse purging without tormina, then vomiting, and half an hour after swallowing the salt excessive muscular debility, amounting to absolute paraplegia of the limbs. This state lasted about twenty-four hours, and then gradually went off.[[1394]] I have known violent vomiting, gripes, and diarrhœa produced in like manner by a quantity not much exceeding the usual medicinal doses.
Dr. Wilson of London has lately described a distinct case of poisoning with the carbonate. The quantity taken was half a tea-cupful; but emetics were given, and operated before any symptoms showed themselves. In two hours the patient complained of dimness of sight, double vision, headache, tinnitus, and a sense of distension in the stomach, and subsequently of pains in the knees and cramps of the legs, with occasional vomiting and purging next day; for some days afterwards the head symptoms continued, though more mildly, and she was much subject to severe palpitations; but she was in the way of recovery when the account of her case was published.[[1395]] Mr. Parkes mentions that, according to information communicated to him by the proprietor of an estate in Lancashire, where carbonate of baryta abounds, many domestic animals on his estate died in consequence of licking the dust of the carbonate, and that it once proved fatal to two persons, a woman and her child, who took each about a drachm.[[1396]] Dr. Johnstone says he once swallowed ten grains of this compound, without experiencing any bad effect.[[1397]]
Section III.—Of the Morbid Appearances caused by the Salts of Baryta.
In animals the mucous membrane of the stomach is usually found of a deep-red colour, unless death take place with great rapidity, in which case the alimentary canal is healthy. In all the animals, which in Dr. Campbell’s experiments were killed by the application of the muriate to wounds, the brain and its membranes were much injected with blood; and in one of them the appearances were precisely those of congestive apoplexy.
In Wach’s case the stomach was dark brownish-red externally, and the small intestines brighter red. Internally the stomach presented uniform deep redness, with clots of blood, and bloody mucus scattered over it; and near the cardiac end there was a perforation, above half an inch in diameter within, and half as wide at the outside, and surrounded with swollen edges and extensive thickening of the villous coat. The small intestines were internally very red and lined with red mucus interspersed with clots of blood. The great intestines were extremely contracted. The lungs were gorged, the heart full of dark liquid blood, and the cerebral vessels distended. Chloride of barium was detected in the stomach and intestines. The perforation in this case was evidently an accidental concurrence.
Section IV.—Of the Treatment.
The treatment of this variety of poisoning consists chiefly in the speedy administration of some alkaline or earthy sulphate, such as the sulphate of soda or sulphate of magnesia. The poison is thus immediately converted into the insoluble sulphate of baryta, which is quite inert. Two drachms of muriate of baryta were injected by Orfila into the stomach of a dog, and eight minutes afterwards two drachms of sulphate of soda. The gullet was then secured by a ligature. At first efforts were made to vomit, and in an hour sulphate of baryta was discharged with the alvine evacuations. There was neither insensibility nor convulsions; and the next morning the animal evidently suffered only from the ligature on the gullet. This fact not only proves the efficacy of the sulphate, but likewise shows that in the kinds of poisoning where diarrhœa occurs, the poison is very soon discharged, and ought therefore to be looked for in the evacuations from the bowels.[[1398]]