Ready remedies to be used in cases of poisoning and other accidents, where medical aid is not immediately available / by James Johnson.

  • James Johnson
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ready remedies to be used in cases of poisoning and other accidents, where medical aid is not immediately available / by James Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by pressure, dryness and heat of the throat, hickup, unquenchable thirst, anxious countenance, and pal¬ pitation of the heart; the skin is sometimes icy cold, and covered with clammy sweats, at other times burning hot, and in the latter stages covered with eruptions. In some rare instances, the above effects are so slight as to be scarcely observable, and the patient sinks within five or six hours after the poison has been taken; in these instances lethargic sleep seems to be the prominent symptom. Small doses of arsenic at intervals will produce the same symptoms, though in a milder degree, but not with less certainty followed by death. The Aqua Toff ana, which was commonly supposed to be the instrument in many of the cases of secret poisoning before alluded to, owed its fatal properties to the presence of arsenic, it was as clear and as tasteless as water, the dose, five or six drops, was repeated at intervals, and thus it could frequently be carried on for many months at the will of the poisoner until a fatal result was obtained.# Remedies : The first great object we must keep in view, is to promote the speedy evacuation of the stomach: if the poison itself has not produced vomit¬ ing, from ten to twenty grains of sulphate of zinc * The woman who gave her name to it, confessed that she had been instrumental in the death of six hundred persons ; but it is no idle boast to assert, that modern science would have paralysed the power of the monster, and that her first crime would have been her last. The account given by Behrends of its symptoms, as quoted by Christison, is interesting. “A certain indescribable change is felt in the whole body, which leads the person to complain to his physician.. The physician examines and reflects, but finds no symptom either external or internal, no constipation, no vomiting, no inflammation, no fever. In short, he can only advise patience, strict regimen, and laxatives. The malady however creeps on, and the physician is again sent for. Still he cannot detect any symptom of note. Mean¬ while the poison takes firmer hold of the system; langour, weariness, and loathing of food continue, the nobler organs gradually become torpid, and the lungs in particular, at length begin to suffer. In a word, the malady is from the first incurable. The unhappy victim pines away insensibly, even in the hands of the physician, and thus, he is brought to a miserable end, through months and years, accord¬ ing to his enemy’s desire.”
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