On the local action of poisons / by Charles Cogswell.

  • Cogswell, Charles, 1813-1892.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the local action of poisons / by Charles Cogswell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Nicotina. The usual experiment on the left leg was performed with a drop of nicotina. The animal immediately drew up the leg, but in a few seconds allowed it to protrude from the thigh, and by the lapse of a minute, the whole extremity was rigidly extended and powerless. In the meanwhile the animal was growing insensible; and in five minutes it could no longer be affected by stimulants. The muscles of both thighs, and of the right leg, contracted under the frog-battery, but in the left leg they were totally unexcitable. Aconita. The same experiment with an eighth of a grain of aconita, pulverized and diffused in water. For about two minutes the animal leaped briskly, and had the entire control over the limb, but then began to let it remain extended. There was now evidence of commencing torpidity. In an hour, the animal had scarcely any power of voluntary motion, only shrinking very slightly when irritated, and retracting the eye if it was touched. The phenomena did not entirely cease for nearly forty-eight hours. At this period, the muscles contracted under the frog-battery in both the hinder extremities, but rather less forcibly in the left. Similar results were obtained on repeating the experiment. Muriate of Aconita.—An eighth of a grain of this alkaloid, nearly dissolved in water by the addition of muriatic acid, was next tried. In less than a minute, the animal’s control over the leg was impaired; and presently it dragged the whole ex¬ tremity in moving from place to place, but still, as in the previous instances, it could use the limb by a strong effort of the will. In five minutes it lay relaxed and insensible. In twenty minutes it had a convulsive quivering over the whole system, not, however, including the limb that was operated on. In half an hour it appeared to be dead. The muscles of the right hinder extremity contracted under the galvanic stimulus, but not those of the left. The results were very similar on repeating the experiment, including the convulsive movements. Allusion has been already made to these, as marking a difference between the action of the alkaloid, and that of the salt of muriatic acid.
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