Medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    25/968 (page 11)
    EVIDENCE OF POISONING IN THE LIVING. symptoms occurring after a meal at which some suspicious vege- tables may have been eaten, coupled with the nature of the symptoms themselves, will commonly indicate the class to which the poison belongs. Some of these poisons have a hot acrid taste; others, like aconite or monkshood, produce a sense of numbness or tingling, while others again have an intensely bitter taste, as nus vomica, strychnia, veratria, and picrotoxia. Strychnia may be regarded as a pure spinal poison. CHAPTER 2. EVIDENCE OE POISONING IN THE LIVING SUBJECT — SYMPTOMS OCCUR SUDDENLY •— MODIFYING CONDITIONS —• ACTION OF POISONS INCUHASED OR DIMINISHED BY DISEASE—SYMPTOMS CONNECTED WITH FOOD OR MEDICINE—SUDDEN DEATH FROM NATURAL CAUSES MISTAKEN EOR POISONING—SEVERAL PER- SONS ATTACKED SIMULTANEOUSLY — EVIDENCE PROM THE DETECTION OF POISON IN THE FOOD. We now proceed to consider the evidence of poisoning in the lioing subject. To the practitioner the diagnosis of a case of poisoning is of great importance, as by mistaking the symp- toms produced by a poison for those arising from natural disease, he may omit to employ the remedial measures which have been found efficacious in counteracting its effects, and thus lead to the certain death of the patient. To a medical jurist a correct knowledge of the symptoms furnishes the chief evidence of poisoning, in those cases in which persons are charged with the malicious and unlawful administration of poi- son. The symptoms produced during life, constitute also an important part of the evidence in those instances in which a poison proves fatal. At present, however, we will suppose the case to be that poison has been taken and the patient survives. Most to.xicological writers have laid down certain characters whereby it is said symptoms of poisoning nuiy be distinguished from those of disease. 1. III. puisaiiiiKj, the si/mptoms appear .imldeiili/, while the iiidi- viiludl i.i in health.—It is the common cliaractor of most poisons, when taken in the large doses in which they are usually ad- ministered witii criminal intent, to ]n-oduce serious symptoms, either immediately or within a very short period after tiiey have been swallowed. Their operation, under such ciiTumstances, cannot be suspended, and then manifest itself after an indefinite interval; although this was formerly a matter of universal be- lief, and gave rise to many absurd accounts of what was termed slow poisoning.