Memoranda on poisons / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner.

  • Thomas Hawkes Tanner
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoranda on poisons / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    window was opened, ice was applied to the head, cold affusions were used along the spine, and an enema was administered. At half-past nine, a.m., the patient was paler, breathing less audibly, and with a weaker pulse. Artificial respiration was employed by means of electri- city, an ammonia lavement was given, and aspersions of ice water to the chest and pit of stomach were used alternately with warm coverings. The stupor continued, the respired air smelt distinctly of chloroform, the abdomen was tympanitic, and the pupils began to con- tract. About nine p.m. the eyes began to move, the pupils seemed sensible to light, the pulse was 160, there was abundant perspiration, and the patient sat up for a few moments and looked surprised. Exhaustion, however, set in ; and death occurred just before mid- night, nearly twenty-four hours after swallowing the poison. A second interesting case (Medical Times and Gazette, 31st May, 1862), also deserves attention. A gentleman, fifty years of age, swallowed two ounces of pure chloro- form at eight o’clock a.m. He was not seen until three p.m., when he was found in a state of doep coma. His breath smelt strongly of chloroform, the pupils were widely dilated and insensible, the pulse slow and feeble, the surface colder than natural, the movements of the thorax scarcely perceptible, and sensation generally abo- lished. Ammonia, sinapisms, bottles of hot water, and cold affusion did no good ; but on using the stomach- pump, a quantity of chloroform mixed with watery mucus was withdrawn, and in less than an hour the patient was able to answer questions. For three or four days he complained of a burning sensation in the throat and epigastrium, and then got well.—A consideration of the treatment employed in this instance cannot but sug- gest the idea that the first patient might have had a better chance of recovery had the stomach-pump been used when Dr. Lamm was first called in ; though it is difficult to conceive how any quantity of chloroform could remain