An experimental inquiry into the physiological action, the poisonous properties, and the therapeutic effects of the hydrocyanic acid / by Henry Lonsdale.

  • Henry Lonsdale
Date:
[1839]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An experimental inquiry into the physiological action, the poisonous properties, and the therapeutic effects of the hydrocyanic acid / by Henry Lonsdale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the blood through the pulmonary tissues. The large dose of an ounce was sometimes given. Magendie, who ranks among the first of the experimental phy¬ siologists on the continent of Europe, appears very satisfactorily, (although some authors seem to think otherwise,) to support the inferences which I have been led to deduce from my experiments. It is evident from the quotation * given below, that this physio¬ logist must have been operating with a diluted acid, and, allowing that he has somewhat exaggerated the time, “ pliisieurs heures,” during which he saw such curious phenomena exhibited by ani¬ mals dosed with acid, the positive statements he has made regard¬ ing the respiration and circulation cannot be called in question. As Magendie has made no mention of the means employed by him to prove the complete extinction of irritability and contrac¬ tility, I am inclined to think, from collateral circumstances, that he had contented himself with watching the respiration and circu¬ lation, the animal having lost sensibility and power of volition, as witnessed in many experiments which I might detail, where doubtless he might suppose, from the quiescent state of the extre¬ mities, that the voluntary muscles had lost all contractility. The respiration is said to have continued easy; now it must as¬ suredly be admitted, that the movements necessary to respiration could not be carried on without the aid of muscular contraction. Orfila has remarked in his Toxicology, that first the contracti¬ lity of the voluntary muscles, then that of the heart and intestines, is annihilated immediately, or a short time after death. f- This statement, so opposed to all my observations, demands some no¬ tice. Let it be remembered that M. Orfila has copied verbatim from Coullon, nor does he add one single observation of his own ; and yet he has hastily written, “ it results from what has pre¬ ceded,” (viz. Coullon’s own words) “ and other facts that the irritability of muscular fibre is destroyed.” What these other facts were, we are not informed. Lest it should appear I am dealing too harshly with the writings of this deservedly great authority in toxicological science, I will do him all justice by co¬ pying from the 157th page of his work, the following paragraph, which is evidently taken from Coullon.]; “ Inspection of the dead bodies shows that the muscular organs, especially the heart, and in the latter almost always the right auricle and ventricle, remain “ En etudiant les phenomenes de l’empoissonement par Tackle prussique, j’ai sou- vent observe des anitnaux qui n’offrant, plus de trace de sensibilite, nide contractility musculaire locomotrice, conservaient pendant plusieurs heures une respiration facile et une circulation en apparence intacte bien que tres accel^ree, et qui, pour ainsi dire, etaient morts par leur fonctions exterieurs et vivaient par leur fonctions nutritives.” Magendie, Recherches Physiol, et Cliniq. sur l’emploi de l’Acide Prussique, p. 8, or Annales de Chimie et Physique, Tom. vi. p. 351. ■f Traite des Poisons, 3d ed. Tom ii. p. 165. + Coullon, Recherches, &c. p. 146.