Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: Note on nutmeg-poisoning / by H.H. Dale. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![was dark coloured with bile pigment, and gave a cloud of albuminous coagulum on boiling. The contrast, then, seemed obvious enough. In the cat, a uniformly fatal coma appearing after a few days, always associated with, and probably secondary to degenerative liver changes, not at all unlike those seen in phosphorus poisoning: in man, on the other hand, as the result of relatively much smaller doses, a temporary condition of excite- ment, followed by narcosis, appearing a few hours after ingestion, and generally passing off without leaving any serious after-effects. With chemically pure myristicin, the active constituent of the volatile oil, the results obtained were very similar, with the exception that the dose given must be proportionately larger. The difference may with great probability be attributed to the readier absorption of myristicin when it is associated with the fats and other constituents of the whole drug. Given pure it is ])robably lost to a considerable extent in the faeces, or, if given hypodermically, very slowly absorbed. However, with 1 c.c. of myristicin given by the mouth, I obtained effects closely similar to those which I observed with 5 to 10 grm. of nutmeg. Again no symptoms were observed, except the salivation and defect of appetite, until two or more days after the myristicin had been given. Then the characteristic jaundice appeared, followed by coma, and the post-mortem findings were as before. So far my results with cats had no point in common with those recorded for man. They resembled the effects obtained by Jiirss,^ who, by injecting relatively very large doses of myristicin into rabbits and guinea-pigs, produced degenerative changes in the liver which he compared to those of phosphorus poisoning, and in some cases recorded a condition of narcosis or coma. I was even in doubt whether the effects in man could be attributed to myristicin until Professor Cushny made his communication, and it became clear that Wallace had produced the primary effects on the nervous system in cats by using even larger doses than those which I had employed. I proceeded, therefore, to try larger doses, and obtained the expected results ; 1'5 c.c. of myristicin given by the mouth to a cat of 3 kgm. caused, after an hour, a condition of excitement, with dilated pupils, tremors, unsteady gait and imperfect avoidance of obstacles. The condition was reminiscent of that produced by a small dose of cannabis indica, and passed off' in a few hours without having deepened into actual narcosis. On the following day the cat ' Hehivmel’s-Bericht, Leipz., 1904, p. 159.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22425512_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
