On poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine / by Alfred Swaine Taylor.

Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine / by Alfred Swaine Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    29/864 (page 5)
    ' 24. Wliosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously administer to, or cause to be administered to or taken by any other person, any x^oison or other destructive or. noxious thing, with intent to injure, aggrieve, or annoy such person, shall be guilty of a mis- demeanour.' ' 25. If, upon the trial of any person charged ^vit'h the felony above mentioned, the jury shall not be satisfied that such person is guilty thereof, but shall be satisfied that he is guilty of the misdemeanour above mentioned, then and in every such case the jury may acquit the accused of such felony, and find him guilty of such misdemeanom-.' CHAPTER 2. ABSOnPTION OF POISOKS.—CHANNFXS OF ENTRANCE ANH EXIT. ENTRANCE INTO AND DIFFUSION BY THE BLOOD. ACTION BY INJECTION INTO THE BLOOD OR WOUNDS. ABSORPTION BY THE UNBROKEN SKIN.— DE.\TII FROM CONTACT AVITH DISEASED SKIN. HYPODERMIC INJECTIONS. POISONING BT HTPODEBMIC INJECTIONS. Poisons may enter the body by various channels. The aerial poisons, including gases and vapours, enter by the air-passages during the act of breathing. Metallic and metalloidal poisons' which are capaVjle of assuming the gaseous form or of being diffused in a fine dust, may also find their way into the body by the lungs. Ar.senic, antimony, and phosphorus, in their com- binations with hydrogen, may act as aerial or gaseous poisons.. In the section on arsenical poisoning, will be found described some cases in which arsenuretted hydrogen has thus proved fatal. There are tliree conditions connected with the action of poisons on the body which require special notice: 1, absorption and difiusion by the blood ; 2, elimination by the fluid secretions and excretions ; and 3, their temporary deposition in the soft organs and tissues. These processes go on simultaneously. As soon as a jjoison has been carried into the blood by absorption, one portion of it is thrown off by the fluids of the body, and another portion is deposited in the tissues. In reference to liquid poisons, they are siini>ly dilFused through tlic soft oi'gans by the blood, and those which are in the state of gas or vapour, are chiefly eliminated from the lungs. The cases which are supposed to be adverse to the theory of absorption are so few that they may be disregarded. The apparent difficulties connected with them will j^robably disappear by further scientific researches. Thus it has been suggested that the effects produced 1)7 serpent-poison are too rapid to bo ac- counted for by absorption ; V)ut in the numerous experiments performed on tliis subject by Drs. Fayrer and Brunton, there was