Of Poisoning with Meadow-Saffron.
The Colchicum autumnale, meadow-saffron, or autumn-crocus, is a more familiar poison in this country than white hellebore, and seems to possess very similar properties. Two parts of the plant are met with in the shops, the cormus or bulb, and the seeds; both of which are poisonous. Both have a strong, disagreeable, persistent, bitter taste. The seeds, and probably the bulb also, contain a bitter crystalline principle, called colchicina, which is soluble in water, neutralizes acids, and possesses intense activity as a poison.
A good physiological investigation into the action of colchicum as a poison is still wanting. Baron Störck found that two drachms of the dried bulb caused in dogs violent diarrhœa and diuresis, ending fatally.[[2282]] Sir Everard Home observed that the active part of about two drachms dissolved in sherry, caused in a dog, when injected into the jugular vein, slow respiration, languor of the pulse, vomiting, diarrhœa, extreme prostration, and death in five hours.[[2283]]—Geiger and Hesse, the discoverers of colchicina, gave a cat a tenth of a grain, which occasioned salivation, vomiting, purging, staggering, extreme languor, colic, and death in twelve hours.[[2284]]
The effects of colchicum on man, like those observed in animals, rather associate it with the acrid than with the narcotic poisons.
In the Edinburgh Journal a case is briefly noticed of a man who took by mistake an ounce and a half of the wine of the bulb, and died in forty-eight hours, after suffering much from vomiting, acute pain in the stomach, colic, purging, and delirium.[[2285]]—Chevallier has described a similar case arising from the wine of the bulb having been given intentionally as a poison. In a few minutes burning pain, urgent thirst, and frequent vomiting of mucus ensued; and death took place in three days.[[2286]]—Three American soldiers, who drank by mistake a large quantity of colchicum wine prepared from the bulb, died with similar symptoms. One of them, who took eighteen ounces, and died in two days, presented the leading symptoms of malignant cholera, namely, frequent vomiting, copious rice-water stools, cramps of the abdominal muscles and flexion of the extremities, coldness of the skin, tongue, and breath, blueness of the nails, dull, sunken eyes, contracted pupils, and collapse of the features. The two others had at first similar symptoms, which passed into those of chronic dysentery, and proved fatal in a few weeks.[[2287]]—M. Caffe has related the case of a young lady who destroyed herself by taking five ounces of the wine containing the active matter of rather more than the fourth part of one bulb. She was soon seized with acute pain in the stomach, then with frequent vomiting, general coldness and paleness, a sense of tightness in the chest and oppression of the breathing, a slow thready pulse, and extreme prostration,—and subsequently with severe and constant cramps in the soles of the feet. In eleven hours she had less frequent efforts to vomit, but was excessively exhausted; in twenty hours the pulse was imperceptible; and in two hours more she died. There was no suppression of urine, no purging, no diminution of sensibility, delirium, convulsions, or change in the state of the pupils.[[2288]] About a twelvemonth afterwards the sister of this patient put an end to herself with the same preparation, of which she took the same quantity; and she died, with precisely the same symptoms, in twenty-eight hours.[[2289]] M. Ollivier met with two cases of death within twenty-four hours, in consequence of a tincture being taken which contained the active part of forty-eight grains of the dry bulb; and a third case of death in three days caused by three doses of a watery decoction made each time with 46 grains of the bruised bulb collected in July. Severe purging and prostration followed each dose. There was no symptom of any affection of the brain.[[2290]]—Mr. Henderson describes a case occasioned by an ounce of the tincture. No injury accrued for three hours. The patient then had gnawing pain in the stomach followed by vomiting, and then by purging, at first bilious, afterwards watery, and attended with numbness in the feet, and subsequently a sense of prickling. In the course of the second day there was intense gnawing pain in all the joints of the extremities, profuse acid sweating, tightness in the head, and pain in the hindhead and nape of the neck. Blood-letting, laxatives, and hyoscyamus were employed with success; but the case seems very nearly to have proved fatal.[[2291]]
The seeds produce similar effects. Bernt has noticed the cases of two children who were poisoned by a handful of colchicum seeds, and who died in a day, affected with violent vomiting and purging.[[2292]] Mr. Fereday of Dudley relates a carefully detailed case of a man who died in forty-seven hours after swallowing by mistake two ounces of the wine of the seeds, and in whom the symptoms were acute pain, coming on in an hour and a half, then retching, vomiting, and tenesmus, feeble pulse, anxious expression, afterwards incessant coffee-coloured vomiting, suppression of urine, excessive weakness of the limbs and feeble respiration, and, for a short period before death, profuse, dark, watery purging. There was neither insensibility nor convulsions.[[2293]]—Blumhardt relates a similar case caused by an infusion of a large table-spoonful of the seeds. In three-quarters of an hour the man was seized with griping, and then profuse diarrhœa and vomiting. Next morning, twelve hours after the poison was taken, his physician found him still affected with vomiting and purging, but not with pain. He seemed, indeed, to suffer so little, and to improve so much under the use of emollients, that he was thought to be fairly recovering. But next day the pulse was almost imperceptible, the countenance and extremities were cold, the voice hoarse, the breathing hurried, the eyes sunk, the pupils dilated, the epigastrium tender, and the forehead affected with pain; and he died at twelve the same day.[[2294]]
The leaves, too, are poisonous. Dr. Bleifus has related a case in proof of this. A man gathered the leaves in the middle of May, and, after cooking them, ate about two ounces for supper. In six hours he was seized with violent colic, vomiting, and purging. In fifteen hours, when his physician first saw him, the countenance was ghastly as in malignant cholera, the pupils dilated and scarcely contractile, but the mind entire. He complained of rheumatic pains in the neck, and burning pain in the pit of the stomach. He had frequent vomiting and purging, spasms of the muscles of the belly, coldness of the skin, a slow, small, wiry pulse, and cramps of the fingers and the calves of the legs. Coffee and lemon-juice allayed the vomiting, and a temporary amendment ensued. But early on the third morning he became worse, and soon afterwards the narrator of the case found him dying.[[2295]]
The flowers are not less poisonous than the bulbs, leaves, and seeds. A case is noticed in Geiger’s Journal of poisoning with a decoction of some handfuls of the flowers, where death occurred within twenty-four hours, under incessant colic, vomiting and purging.[[2296]]
Doubts exist as to the degree of activity of colchicum. Some practitioners direct half an ounce of the tincture of the seeds to be given as a medicinal dose,[[2297]] even four times a day.[[2298]] Others administer from one to two drachms night and morning. According to more general experience, these are dangerous doses. Dr. Lewins, junior, has seen dangerous symptoms from a drachm given thrice a day for a week;[[2299]] a fatal case occurred a few years ago in the Edinburgh Infirmary, from this amount having been given for a few days only; I have known very violent effects produced by half an ounce taken by mistake, although most of it was brought away by emetics in an hour; and, in medical practice, I have seldom seen the dose of a sound preparation gradually raised to a drachm thrice a day, without such severe purging and sickness ensuing as rendered it prudent to diminish or discontinue the remedy. There is no doubt, however, that larger doses have occasionally been taken without any ill effect. Constitutional peculiarity can alone account for such differences in the instance of the tincture of the seeds. As to the preparations of the bulb, an additional source of diversity of effect is a difference in the activity of the bulb according to season. On this point no accurate facts have yet been brought forward. The bulb is usually directed to be gathered in July, when it is most plump and firm, and most charged with starch. Orfila, however, says that three bulbs, collected at this time, had no effect whatever on a dog;[[2300]] and Buchner maintains that it is most energetic in the autumn, when the flowering stem is rising.[[2301]] I suspect, on the other hand, that it is very energetic in the spring, when it is watery, more membranous, and shrivels much in drying; for it is then very bitter.
The morbid appearances are chiefly those of inflammation of the alimentary canal.