A text-book of medicine : for students and practitioners.

  • Adolph Strümpell
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of medicine : for students and practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1038/1108 page 1010
    35. Poisonings from Meo.t.—In repeated instances severe symptoms have been occasioned by eating tainted meat, or possibly that obtained from animals which had been diseased. These symptoms are certainly due to the products of putre- faction, substances which act partly like muscarine, partly like atropine, neurine, methylguanidiue, etc. The special poison is not yet fully known. Probably there are several poisons, either chemical or organic and infectious. The usual symp- toms are vomiting and diarrhoea. The case may closely simulate cholera. In most instances certain nervous phenomena are also observed—wakefulness deliri- um, headache, and changes in the pupils. There may be roseola or wheals or erythema. Frequently there, is a high fever, but sometimes the temperature is subnormal. The pulse is small and slightly accelerated, although it may occa- sionally be slower than normal. There is a sense of thoracic oppression. The cases are often protracted. Tendency to relapses. Death may occur. Postmortem, tnere is usually found an intense and often haemorrhagic enteritis with secondary changes in the spleen, kidneys, lungs, and other organs. Treatment: Symptom- atic; calomel, emulsions, stimulants, and baths. Pood should be given cau- tiously. 36. Poisoning from Pish.—The eating of tainted fish has likewise caused gi’ave distmbance. The symptoms vary. Usually there are pain in the stomach, prse- cordial anxietjq vertigo, dryness of the throat, aphonia, and labored resphation. There may also be disturbance of vision, amblyopia, and colored vision, or paraly- sis of the motores oculi and of accommodation. In severe cases there may be dysphagia and general paresis. Sometimes dyspnoea and cardiac weakness are observed. The cases are frequently very tedious. Here, too, there are many active poisonous products of putrefaction, among them one which acts like muscarine. Treatment similar to that recommended in the two preceding paragi’aphs. 37. Poisoning from Mussels (Mytilus Edulis). This is also common. A draw- ing feeling in the neck, a blunt feeling in the teeth, crawling and burning in the arms and legs, dullness in the head, mental excitability, feeling as if everything were light, as if the patient must fiy; in the later stages dilated, immobile pupils, difficult speech, paresis and ataxia of the muscles; also nausea, skin eruptions (urticaria), fall of temperature. In severe cases death may ensue in a few hours. At the autopsy we find severe enteritis, enlargement of the spleen, and often a peculiar speckling of the liver. The poison of mussels that is known has been called mytilotoxine. 38. Poisoning from Cheese.—Vomiting, colicky pains, diarrhoea, vertigo, sense of thoracic oppression, headache, languor, and disturbance of vision. Treatment as in pai’agraphs 35 and 36.
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