An inquiry into the physiological and medicinal properties of the Aconitum Napellus : to which are added observations on several other species of aconitum / by Alexander Fleming.

  • Fleming, Alexander, 1824-1875.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the physiological and medicinal properties of the Aconitum Napellus : to which are added observations on several other species of aconitum / by Alexander Fleming. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    ment of the right side of the heart, as well as of the liver and spleen.* IV. Degland has described four cases where poison- ing was caused by a tincture supposed to be made from the root of Aconite ; although, from the general charac- ter of the symptoms, this seems questionable. An old woman who prepared the mixture, took two ounces and a half at midnight, and died before morning. Three other individuals took each half an ounce, and were attacked with burning pain in the throat and stomach, severe colic, abdominal tenderness, vomiting, and purging. One of them became violently delirious, but subsequently recovered. The other two died, one in two hours, the other half an hour later. Dissection displayed unequi- vocal marks of gastro-intestinal inflammation. The poison, which was found in the stomach of each, is de- scribed as having had a bitter taste; but it does not appear to have produced numbness or tingling, f V. The following case of murder, by poisoning with the root of Monkshood, is narrated by Dr Geoghegan. The woman, Mary Anne M'Conkey, who committed the crime, was tried at the Monaghan Assizes in 1841. The prisoner, who had been too intimate with an- other man, and had been heard to express her intention of getting rid of her husband, w^as observed one day before dinner to separate some greens for him from the * Pereira in La Lancette Frangaise, Mars 1839, p, 77. t Jour de Chim. Med. iii., 344.