Of Poisoning with Mezereon.
The mezereon and several other species of the genus Daphne to which it belongs are powerfully acrid. They belong to the natural order Thymeleæ. The active properties of the bark of mezereon have been traced to a very acrid resin; and those of the allied species, Daphne alpina, to a volatile, acrid acid.[[1459]]
The experiments of Orfila have been confined to a foreign species, the D. Gnidium or garou of the French. Three drachms of the powder of its bark retained in the stomach of a dog killed it in twelve hours; and two drachms applied to a wound killed another in two days.[[1460]] The action of the other species has not been so scientifically investigated; but fatal accidents have arisen from them when taken by the human species. Children have been tempted to eat the berries of the D. mezereon by their singular beauty; and some have died in consequence. Three such cases, not fatal, have been related by Dr. Grieve of Dumfries. Two of the children had violent vomiting and purging: in the third narcotic symptoms came on in five hours, namely, great drowsiness, dilatation of the pupils, extreme slowness of the pulse, retarded respiration, and freedom from pain.[[1461]] Vicat relates the case of a man who took the wood of it for dropsy, and was attacked with profuse diarrhœa and obstinate vomiting, the last of which symptoms recurred occasionally for six weeks.[[1462]] A fatal case, in a child about eight years of age, occurred a few years ago in this city. Linnæus in his Flora Suecica says that six berries will kill a wolf, and that he once saw a girl die of excessive vomiting and hæmoptysis, in consequence of taking twelve of them to check an ague.[[1463]] The D. laureola or spurge-laurel, a common indigenous species, abounding in low woods, is said by Withering to be very acrid, especially its root.[[1464]]
Of Poisoning with Cuckow-pint.
The Arum maculatum, or cuckow-pint, one of our earliest spring flowers, not uncommon in moist ground, under the shelter of woods, is one of the most violent of all acrid vegetables inhabiting this country. I have known acute burning pain of the mouth and throat, pain of the stomach and vomiting, colic and some diarrhœa, occasioned by eating two leaves. The genus possesses the same properties in other climates, the several species being everywhere among the most potent acrid poisons in their respective regions. The Arum seguinum, or dumb cane of the West Indies, is so active that two drachms of the juice have been known to prove fatal in a few hours.[[1465]] It is not a little remarkable that the acridity of the arum is lost not merely by drying, but likewise by distillation. I have observed that when the roots are distilled with a little water, neither the distilled water nor the residuum possesses acridity. Reinsch says he has eaten powder of arum root, which, though not acrid to the taste, produced severe burning of the throat not long after it was swallowed.[[1466]]
Of Poisoning with Gamboge.
The familiar pigment and purgative gamboge is one of the pure acrids, and possesses considerable activity. It appears from the researches of Orfila,[[1467]] some experiments by Schubarth,[[1468]] and various earlier inquiries quoted by Wibmer,[[1469]] that two drachms will kill a sheep; that a drachm and a half will kill a dog if retained by a ligature on the gullet, while much larger doses have little effect without this precaution, as the poison is soon vomited; that an ounce has little effect on the horse; that eighteen grains will prove fatal to the rabbit within twenty-four hours; and that the symptoms are such as chiefly indicate an irritant action. Orfila farther found that it produces intense spreading inflammation when applied to a recent wound, and in this way may occasion death as quickly and with as great certainty as when administered internally.
Gamboge in its action on man is well known to be one of the most certain and active of the drastic cathartics, from three to seven grains being sufficient to cause copious watery diarrhœa, commonly with smart colic. Larger doses will induce hypercatharsis. A drachm has proved fatal, as is exemplified by a case in the German Ephemerides where the symptoms were excessive vomiting, purging, and faintness.[[1470]]
Under this head are probably to be arranged the repeated cases, which have lately occurred in this country, of fatal poisoning with a noted quack nostrum, Morison’s pills. Almost every physician in extensive practice has met with cases of violent hypercatharsis occasioned by the incautious use of these pills; and three instances are now on record where death was clearly occasioned by them.[[1471]] No toxicologist will feel any surprise at such results, when he learns that one sort contains, besides aloes and colocynth, half a grain of gamboge, and another three times as much, in each pill; and that ten, fifteen, or even twenty pills are sometimes taken for a dose once or oftener in the course of the day.[[1472]] The symptoms in the cases alluded to were sickness, vomiting and watery purging, pain, tension, fulness, tenderness, and heat in the abdomen, with cold extremities and sinking pulse; and in the dead body the appearances were great redness of the stomach with softening of its villous coat, in the intestines softening and slate-gray coloration of the same coat, and in one instance intestinal ulceration.
Gamboge is one of the poisons whose energy seems to be irregularly modified by the co-existence of certain constitutional states in disease. Physicians in Britain cannot but be startled to hear of the practice, prevailing among the followers of Rasori in Italy, of administering this purgative in doses of a drachm and upwards in inflammatory diseases. But it is nevertheless undeniable, that it has been given to that extent in such circumstances, with no further consequence than brisk purging. Professor Linoli mentions two cases of inflammatory dropsy, in which he gave gamboge-powder in gradually increasing doses, till he reached in one instance an entire drachm, and in the other 86 grains. In the course of a month one of his patients got 1044 grains, and the other took 850 grains in twelve days. Both recovered from their dropsy, and the purging was never great.[[1473]]