Symptoms in Man.—The effects of the almond and of the oil upon man are equally striking with those of hydrocyanic acid.
In small doses the bitter almond produces disorder of the digestive organs, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes diarrhœa. These symptoms are occasionally brought on by the small quantities used for flavouring sweetmeats, if the confectioner has not been careful in compounding them. Virey says that accidents occasionally happen to children at Paris from their eating freely of macaroons, which are sometimes too strongly flavoured with the bitter almond.[[1965]] In this country accidents from the same cause may be with justice apprehended, as confectioners now generally use, not the bitter almond, but its essential oil, which is distilled for the purpose in London, and sold in the druggists shops under the name of peach-nut oil. Göppert suggests that this oil ought to be freed of its hydrocyanic acid by repeated distillation with caustic potassa, because the flavour is not in the least injured by the process, while its activity as a poison is greatly lessened.
In peculiar constitutions the minutest quantity, even a single almond, will cause a state resembling intoxication, succeeded by an eruption like nettle-rash. The late Dr. Gregory was subject to be affected in this way. Other vegetable bitters had the same effect on him, but none so remarkably as bitter almonds. They caused first sickness, generally tremors, then vomiting, next a hot fit with an eruption of urticaria, particularly on the upper part of the body. At the same time the face, and head swelled very much, and there was generally a feeling like intoxication. The symptoms lasted only for a few hours. The rash did not alternately appear and disappear as in common nettle-rash.[[1966]] A lady of my acquaintance is liable to be attacked with urticaria even from eating the sweet almond.
The quantity of bitter almonds which may be eaten with impunity is unknown; but Wibmer mentions an experimentalist who took half an ounce without any other effect besides headache and sickness.[[1967]] Two cases of death in the human subject from eating them have been quoted by Coullon from the Journal de Médecine of Montpellier. One is a doubtful case, but the other is unequivocal. A bath-woman gave her child the “expressed juice” of a handful of bitter almonds to cure worms. The child, who was four years old, was immediately attacked with colic, swelling of the belly, giddiness, locked jaw, frothing at the mouth, general convulsions, and insensibility, and died in two hours.[[1968]] Murray, however, asserts in his Apparatus Medicaminum that the expressed juice is sweet and not poisonous.[[1969]] But this apparent contradiction is easily explained by referring to the chemical relations of the almond,—the oil expressed without water being free from essential oil, while the milky fluid expressed from the pulp beat up with water is strongly impregnated with it.—Another case was published not long ago by Mr. Kennedy of London; but the symptoms were imperfectly ascertained. The person, a stout labourer, appeared to have eaten a great quantity of bitter almonds, which were subsequently found in the stomach. He was seen to drop down while standing near a wall; soon after which the surgeon who was sent for found him quite insensible, with the pulse imperceptible, and the breath exhaling the odour of bitter almonds; and death took place in no long time.[[1970]]
Coullon has noticed many other instances where alarming symptoms were produced by this poison, but were dissipated by the supervention of spontaneous vomiting.
The effects of small doses of the oil have been tried by Sir B. Brodie on himself; and a fatal case of poisoning with it has been recorded by Mertzdorff. In the course of his experiments Sir B. Brodie once happened to touch his tongue with the end of a glass rod which happened to be dipped in the oil; and he says he had scarcely done so before he felt an uneasy, indescribable feeling in the pit of the stomach, great feebleness of his limbs, and loss of power to direct the muscles, so that he could hardly keep himself from falling. These sensations were quite momentary.[[1971]]
Mertzdorff’s case is interesting, not only as being accurately related, but likewise on account of the exact resemblance of the symptoms to those observed in the celebrated case of Sir Theodosius Boughton, which will presently be mentioned. A hypochondriacal gentleman, 48 years old, swallowed two drachms of the essential oil. A few minutes afterwards, his servant, whom he sent for, found him lying in bed, with his features spasmodically contracted, his eyes fixed, staring, and turned upwards, and his chest heaving convulsively and hurriedly. A physician, who entered the room twenty minutes after the draught had been taken, found him quite insensible, the pupils immoveable, the breathing stertorous and slow, the pulse feeble and only 30 in a minute, and the breath strongly impregnated with the odour of bitter almonds, death ensued ten minutes afterwards.[[1972]] A fatal case occurred lately in London, where the individual, intending to compound a nostrum for worms with beech-nut oil, got by mistake from the druggist peach-nut oil, which is nothing else than the oil of bitter almond.—A singular case of recovery from a very large dose of this poison has been lately published by M. Chevasse. A shopkeeper, who swallowed half an ounce by mistake for spirit of nitric ether, had an attack of spontaneous vomiting, which was forthwith encouraged by sulphate of zinc. He nevertheless became pale and convulsed; the pulse disappeared; and delirious muttering ensued, with risus sardonicus, sparkling of the eyes, and panting respiration. Recovery, however, took place under the use of brandy and ammonia.[[1973]]
The morbid appearances are the same as in poisoning with the pure acid. In Mertzdorff’s case the whole blood and body emitted a smell of almonds; putrefaction had begun, though the inspection was made twenty-nine hours after death; the blood throughout was fluid, and flowed from the nostrils and mouth; the veins were every where turgid; the cerebral vessels gorged; the stomach and intestines very red.—In the case from the Medical and Physical Journal of poisoning with the almond itself, the vessels of the brain were much gorged, and the eyes glistening and staring as if the person had been alive.
Of the Cherry-Laurel.
The cherry-laurel, or Cerasus lauro-cerasus, was at one time much used for flavouring liqueurs and sweetmeats. But it is now less employed than formerly, as fatal accidents have happened from its having been used in too large quantity. The custom, however, has not been altogether abandoned; for there is an account in an English newspaper in 1823 of two persons killed by ratifia’d brandy, which had been flavoured with this plant; and Dr. Paris has mentioned an instance of several children at an English boarding-school having been dangerously affected by a custard flavoured with the leaves.[[1974]] Almost every part of the plant is poisonous, especially the leaves and kernels; but the pulp of the cherry is not. The flower has a totally different odour from the leaves. The healthy vigorous shoots in the early part of summer, and the inner bark, both then and in autumn, smell strongly of the bitter almond when broken across. The kernels of the seeds have a strong taste of bitter almonds.—The plant yields a distilled water and an essential oil, which Robiquet found to have all the chemical properties of the oil of bitter almond.[[1975]]—A very peculiar source of danger in using the leaves of this plant, for imparting a ratafia flavour to sweetmeats and liqueurs, is that the proportion of oil varies excessively according to the age of the leaf. It abounds most in the young undeveloped leaves, and diminishes gradually afterwards. Hence, the leaves being evergreen and outliving more than two summers, the young leaves in May or June contain, as I have found, nearly ten times as much oil as the old ones at the same moment.