Outlines of a course of lectures on medical jurisprudence / by Thomas Stewart Traill.

  • Traill, Thomas Stewart, 1781-1862.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of a course of lectures on medical jurisprudence / by Thomas Stewart Traill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    except the head, is immersed in carbonic acid, life will be extinguished. After death from this gas, the features generally re- main placid, the eyes open and brilliant, the body long re- tains its heat and flexibility. When the person has not been exposed long enough to extinguish life, the breathing may be stertorous and oppressive, the face flushed, the pulse feeble, the eyes prominent and wildly rolling about, the tongue swollen, and the saliva flowing out of the mouth. The proper treatment consists in removing the patient into the open air, or into a well-ventilated room ; the sur- face should be sprinkled with vinegar and water, and every few minutes rubbed dry with hot towels. If the valve bel- lows be at hand, the foul air should be first drawn from the lungs, and its place immediately supplied by fresh air, thrown in by the same machine. This alternation may be two or three times repeated, and then we should imitate natural respiration as much as possible, throwing in air by the bellows, and aiding the expulsion of the air by gentle pressure on the chest. Brushing the soles of the feet and palms of the hand with stiff brushes, stimulating the nose by a feather, or by ammonia, are useful auxiliaries. When animation is restored, it is time enough to put the patient to bed. VI. Vegetable Poisons.—These include most of the narcotic and narcotico-acrid poisons of Orfila. Narcotism begins with a sense of fulness in the head, then succeed a sort of intoxication, dizziness, headach, loss of voluntary motion, almost amounting to paralysis, sometimes convul- sions, and finally stupor and coma. These symptoms may not all be present; for each poison has its peculiar modi- fication of the general symptoms. The poisonous qualities of most vegetable substances reside in certain alkaloids, the bases of which appear to be carbon and hydrogen, with a small quantity of nitrogen.