Treatment.—Wash out stomach with a solution of sodium or magnesium sulphate, or of alum, and give stimulants by the mouth and hypodermically.
XIX.—IODINE—IODIDE OF POTASSIUM
Iodine occurs in scales of a dark bluish-black colour. It strikes blue with solution of starch, and stains the skin and intestines yellowish-brown. Liquid preparations, as the liniment or tincture, may be taken accidentally or suicidally.
Symptoms.—Acrid taste, tightness of throat, epigastric pain, and then symptoms of irritant poisons generally. Chronic poisoning (iodism) is characterized by coryza, salivation, and lachrymation, frontal headache, loss of appetite, marked mental depression, acne of the face and chest, and a petechial eruption on the limbs.
Post-Mortem Appearances.—Those of irritant poisoning with corrosion, and staining of a dark brown or yellow colour.
Treatment.—Stomach-pump and emetics, carbonate of sodium, amylaceous fluids, gruel, arrowroot, starch, etc.
Analysis of Organic Mixture containing Iodine.—Add bisulphide of carbon, and shake. The iodine may be obtained on evaporation as a sublimate. It will be recognized by the blue colour which it gives with starch.
Iodide of Potassium.—Colourless, generally opaque, cubic crystals, soluble in less than their weight of cold water.
Symptoms.—Not an active poison, but even small doses sometimes produce the effects of a common cold, including those symptoms already mentioned as occurring with iodine.