A treatise on poisons, in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic / By Robert Christison.

  • Robert Christison
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on poisons, in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic / By Robert Christison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    881/918 (page 843)
    CHAPTER XLI. OF POISONING WITH ALCOHOL, ETHER, AND EMPYKEUMATIC OILS. The last groupe of the Narcotico-Acrids comprehends Al- cohol, Ether, and the Emjjyreumatic Oils. Of Poisoning with Alcohol. Of its Action on Animals, and Symptoms in Man.—Alcohol has been generally believed, since the experiments of Mr Brodie*, to act on the brain through the medium of the nerves, and to do so without entering the blood. This may be doubted. At least in some experiments performed several years ago by Dr C. Coindet and myself it appeared to act not so swiftly, but that absorption might easily have taken place before its operation began. At all events, however, through whatever channel it may operate, there is little doubt that it enters the blood; for in man the breath has a strong smell of spirit for a consider- able time after it is swallowed. Professor Orfila found that al- cohol is a violent poison when injected into the cellular tis- sue ; and that it produces through that channel the same effects as when taken into the stomach f. In the course of our expe- riments Dr C. Coindet and I found that it acted with great ra- pidity when injected into the cavity of the chest. Authors who have treated of the action of alcohol and spiri- tuous liquors on man, have distinguished three degrees in its immediate effects. 1. When the dose is small, much excitement and little sub- sequent depression are produced. 2. When the effect is sufficiently great to receive the desig- nation of poisoning, the symptoms are more violent excitement, flushed face, giddiness, confusion of thought, delirium, and va- rious mental affections, varying with individual character, and too familiar to require description here. These symptoms are soon followed by dozing and gradually increasing somnolency, which may at length become so deep as not to be always easily * Philosophical Transactions, ci. 118. f Toxicol. Gen. ii. 4.31.