A practical treatise on poisons and asphyxies, adapted to general use : followed by directions for the treatment of burns and for the distinction of real from apparent death / By M.P.[!] Orfila ... Tr. from the Fench, with notes and additions, by J.G. Stevenson, M.D., with an appendix.

  • Orfila, Matthieu Joseph Bonaventure, 1787-1853. Secours à donner aux personnes empoisonnées ou asphyxiées. English
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on poisons and asphyxies, adapted to general use : followed by directions for the treatment of burns and for the distinction of real from apparent death / By M.P.[!] Orfila ... Tr. from the Fench, with notes and additions, by J.G. Stevenson, M.D., with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    First stage. The individual poisoned must be relieved of the poisonous substance which has not yet acted ; for if it continues to exercise its action on the intestinal canal, the evils will be greatly aggravated, and the remedies employed will with difficulty produce their good effects. Now there are two ways to prevent the action of poisons upon the alimentary canal ; the first is to cause them to be rejected upwards or down- wards ; the second consists in neutralizing them so that they can no longer act deleteriously upon the textures of the body. Evacuants. Medicines employed in cases of poisoning for the purpose of producing vomiting, are of two kinds : one class consists of substances which have a real emetic power, such as tartar emetic [tartarized antimony], white vitriol [sul- phate of zinc], etc. ; these are employed when the poisonous substance introduced into the stomach does not irritate it : the second class consists of aqueous, mucilaginous, and emollient substances, which produce; vomiting merely by distending the stomach and forcing it to contract: these arc employed in cases where the poisons are irritating, acrid, and corrosive, and where, consequently, it would be dangerous to have re- course to violent emetics, which would increase the irritation of the stomach.