Case of strychnia-poisoning, and recovery under treatment with calabar bean and chloroform / by John White.

  • White, John, M.D.
Date:
[1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of strychnia-poisoning, and recovery under treatment with calabar bean and chloroform / by John White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    and bought 4d worth of poison, which she said was to kill mice. On her arrival home she mixed the poison in a cup, by means of a spoon, with cold water, and drank it off. She then poured water on the grounds, as she called it, and drank off every particle ; and, having burned the wrappers, went to bed to die. She had taken no food for three hours previously, and then only a spare meal of bread and tea. As nearly as I can calculate, I saw her twenty-five minutes after she had swallowed the poison. My patient recovered rapidly, and was able to be sent home in the course of next day. I have heard of her since her return to Ayrshire, and no bad results seem to have followed. To corroborate part of her statement, I went to the shop she mentioned, and found that a woman answering to her description had, at the same time she indicated, purchased two 2d packets Vermin-killer for the purpose of killing mice. The powder similar to which she swallowed I now show you. It is in moderately fine powder, of a bluish colour; metallic taste not unhke that of sulphate of zinc, and very bitter. It mixes readily with water, is par- tially soluble in cold, and entirely so in boiling water. Under the micro- scope it appears starchy lookiag with admixture of small crystals, and in a regular state of division. Tests for strychnia having been applied, that sub- stance was found to be abundant. To save the troublesome process of a quantitative analysis, the person who prepared the Vermin-kiUer was com- municated with. He courteously replied that each six grains of the pre- paration contained exactly one of strychnine. Now, as two 2d packets weigh exactly 20 grains, this gives 3J grains strychnine as the quantity swallowed. The question here arises. Did she swallow the whole of the quantity she bought? From the circumstantial manner in which she de- scribed her process of mixing and swallowing the dregs, along with her determination to commit suicide, I have no doubt of it. Another question may be put, Did she reject any part along with the mustard and water 35 minutes after swallowing the poison? I am of opiaion that she did not; the rejected portion seemed not to have come from the stomach at all, but simply the ounce, or two at the most, of mus- tard and water which I had tried to force her to swallow; and the subse- quent persistence of symptoms go far to confirm this. As to the treatment, I cannot say it was strictly scientific; but the end justified the means. The urgency of symptoms was such that we used two remedies, the action of which, so far as we know, are not physiologically incompatible; but how far each individually, or both conjointly, acted