Poisoning by belladonna.

  • Wharton, J.H.
Date:
[1862]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Poisoning by belladonna. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    0 Ten o’clock p.m.: The Cases 2 and 3 were found to be much relieved, and to have taken their medicines regu- larly ; the former in five, the latter in ten-drop doses. They had had some sleep, and had partaken of food. Beef- tea, and stirabout subsequently, a portion having been rejected. Case 1, however, had taken, or rather been forced to take, only an inappreciable quantity of his medi- cine, and as his state was not by any means improved, it was determined to exhibit the drug per rectum—a resolu- tion warranted by the success arrived ^t in Cases 2 and 3. Accordingly, fifteen di’ops were injected at midnight, and at two o’clock a.m. on the 21sf the report is, “ all three sleeping gently.” At four, six, and eight o’clock a.m., the medicines in the doses already supplied were regularly given. It was also duly administered in Case No. 1, as he was enabled to swallow in two hours after the .exhibition of the opiate enema. At nine o’clock Case 1 is reported, “ Delirium subsided ; all spasm gone; is still a little stupid about answering questions; pupils less dilated ; a like improvement in the other two.” The opium was now administered at increas- who “ was led to try this plan of treatment,” by opium, “ from the perusal of a paper, of which Mr. Benjamin Bell was the author, and published in Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1858.”—Medical Times and Gazette, New Series, vol. xix. (Mr. Bell gives some cases where the subcutaneous injec- tion of morphia was used to counteract the poisonous effects of the subcutaneous injection of atropine). In the Bntish Medical Journal, vol. ii., page 30, an interest- ing case is published by Wiffiam Newman, M.D.Lond., of a patient, who, through mistake, had been allowed to continue the use of morphia. Upon awaking after a sound sleep, she took some “ pills ” which she found in her bed, for the purpose of procuring more sleep, as she alleged; but a contrary effect was produced, for the pills were portions of emp. bellad. and thuris., disengaged from a plaster which had been applied to relieve palpitation.