Thomson's Conspectus of the British pharmacopoeias.

  • Anthony Todd Thomson
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thomson's Conspectus of the British pharmacopoeias. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    216/248 page 188
    antimony is decomposed by water, which forms a white precipitate; and by the hydrosulphurets, which precipitate it of an orange colour. Treatment. See Tartar Emetic. MURIATE or CHLORIDE OF TIN, (Ckloras Stanni.) A corrosive .metallic poison. Symptoms. An austere metallic taste; constriction of the oesophagus; impeded respiration; violent vomiting, with cramp of the stomach and excruciating colic pains, purging, the pulse small, but sharp and quick; convulsions, sometimes paralysis, asphyxia, and death. Morbid Appearances. Inflammation and erosion of the stomach and intestines. Test. This salt, in the solid state, is in small acicular crystals, of a yellowish-white colour; deliquescent in the air, and reddening the vegetable blues. Mix the solid salt in a crucible, with charcoal and caustic potassa (potassa fusa), and, covering the crucible with char- coal, expose it to a strong heat for twenty minutes. The result should be metallic tin and chloride of potassium. If the poison be in solution, precipitate separate portions of it by the following re-agents: solution of potassa, or of ferro-cyanide of potassium, which throw down white precipitates; and the hydro-sulphurets, which form yellow precipi- tates. Bichloride of mercury, which forms a grey precipitate com- posed of grains of metallic mercury; and nitrate of silver, which pre- cipitates clots of hydrochlorate of silver. If the solvents be wine or coffee, the solution must be freed from colour by chlorine before being tested. Treatment. Dilute copiously with milk, which appears to decompose the chloride; then excite vomiting by large draughts of tepid water and irritating the fauces. Bleed, and employ the warm bath, foment- ations, and emollient enemas, to combat the inflammatory symptoms ; administering, at the same time, opiates and antispasmodics to soothe the nervous irritation. THE MUSSEL, (Mylilis Edulis.) A septic animal poison. Symptoms. Sensation of weight at the stomach, nausea, constriction of the throat, immoderate thirst, vomiting, stertorous breathing, vertigo, itching, and sometimes an eruption all over the skin; low tremulous pulse, subsultus, and coldness of the extremities, occasionally ter- minating in death. Morbid Appearances. Slight evidences of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach. A dark foetid fluid is present in the stomach ; and the whole body rapidly undergoes putrefaction. Test. None, Treatment. Evacuate the stomach by a powerful emetic, and by irri- tating the fauces with the finger or a feather, until full vomiting be excited : purge with castor oil; and, at the same time, dilute freely with acidulous liquids, giving, at short intervals, from twenty to sixty drops of Kther in half an ounce of simple syrup. These remarks apply generally to all cases of poisoning by fish. (For a list of the fish most to be dreaded, see London Medical Re- pository, vol. iii. p. 451.) But it is probable, as suggested by Dr. Bur- rows in the paper referred to, that the poisonous properties of fish depend chiefly on an unhealthy state of the fish its-elf. NITRATE OF CO °PER. See under Sulphate of Copper. NITRE—NITRATE OF POTASSA, (Nitras Potassa?.) An acrid mineral poison. Symptoms. When taken in doses of half an ounce to an ounce, which has too frequently happened from the salt being sold by mistake for sulphate of soda, it excites nausea, vomiting, and hypercatharsis; bloody stools, excruciating tormina of the lower bowels, the sensation of fire in the stomach, laborious respiration, cold extremities, syncope, convulsions, and sometimes death. If the patient live, he may remain paralytic. Morbid Appearances. Inflammation and sphacelation of the mucous
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