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.
938/968 (page 924)
![lished regarding arsenic eating in Styria. Von Tschudi and others have asserted tliat arsenic could not be safely taken or administered, unlc-s it v as commenet d about the time of the new moon :—and tliat symptoms of poisoning by arsenic were manifested in arsenic-eaters, not during the taking of the poison, but on the person ceasing to take it! Dr. Roscoe pub- lishes the case of an arsenic-eaier, ■which shows that this state- ment is erroneous. A man -who had suffered from indigestion ai d general debility began to eat arsenic. He continued this practice for seven years, and had gradually improved in health. lie had been perfectly well until yesterday ( ?), when he took rather a larger dose than usual, and was seized with violent pains, which he thought were colic, but which proved to be gastro-enteritis in a severe form. Upon the ad- ministration of the usual remedies (for arsenic), especially the hydrated peroxide of iron, the patient recovered in a short time (p. 10). The doses taken are not stated, nor is the excess which caused the symptoms described. The result, however, shows that the man was not cured hy giving him more arsenic, but on ordinary principles, by withdrawing the arsenic and administering to him the antidotes for this poison. It is worthy of remark, as bearing on the non-inliucnce of habit, that irycH ?/(,'«;',s-of arsenic-eaiing were not sufficient to protect this man from the poisonous action of arsenic when taken in rather a larger dose than usual. The Styrians are not likely to find imitators in England. This pamphlet satisfactorily shows that symptoms of acute poi- soning, gastro-enleritis, and dealh are the results of the adop- tion of this dangerous practice. It would be difficult to persuade an I'lnglish ])casant, how ever ill-cducated. that he could safely put into his daily food a substance which he used for destroy- ing vermin,— or an Eiiglish woman, that she could salclv take, to improve her jiersonal attractions, a mineral which pregnant women were in the habit of using to procure abortion (.p. 7). It is a strange and inexitlicable circumstance, that the medico- legal writers of (iermaiiy have not dealt with this question by a projier investigation of tlie fact.s. In the recently published ela- borate work of laspcr(Praetisches Handbuch der Ocrichtlichcn ^ledicin, I.'<.)7-8), although the subject of arsenical poi.'oning is very lully treated, there is no reference to the existence of a cla-sof loxophagists in Styria. The recent works of Biickcr, ]}ock. and Otto, as well as the German Quarterly Journals de- voted to Legal .Medicine are equally silent on the alleged prac- tice. (See a paprr by M. Kopp. Monitcur Scienlifique, -Mars ISC.l, I-iv. 101. p. lOti.) l'i:(;c AC. Drirrlioii of iii'pliiirir add. licdnclion of sulphite oJ'ba 'njta.—'Y\w statement published by Dr. V. Davy of Dublin](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21935221_0938.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
