Remarks on two cases of poisoning by opium in young children / by J. Jardine Murray.

  • Murray, J. Jardine.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on two cases of poisoning by opium in young children / by J. Jardine Murray. 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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    REMARKS ON TWO CASES OF POISONING BY OPIUM IN YOUNG- CHILDREN. Two from among the cases of poisoning by opium, which occurred while I had charge of the Medical-Accident-Wards in the Royal In- firmary, appear worthy of record. In both the patients were young children, in both the dose was large, and both happily recovered. Case I.1—On the 14th September 1857, shortly after 9 a.m., Daniel Pater- son, an infant aped twelve months and a day, was brought to the medical waiting-room of the Royal Infirmary by his parents. The father, an intelli- gent working-engineer, was already shaking the child and talking loudly in his ears. The little patient was a well-developed, robust child ; if allowed to remain unmolested for a few moments, he lapsed into a deep sopor, Appearance on whence he could with difficulty be roused to utter a whimpering Admission- cry which was overcome midway by recurring sleepiness; eye- lids closed, pupils upturned, strongly contracted, and little, if at all, influenced by light; pulse 95, full and soft; respiration slow, but other- wise natural; skin cold, particularly over the extremities. At 7.50 a.m., the father having previously left home for his workshop, the mother took the child from bed to administer to him a dose of tine- History, tureof rhubarb. After the medicine had been swallowed, she walked about till he was somewhat pacified, and then replaced him in his crib. Half-an-hour afterwards her attention was arrested by the child's hurried breathing, and by his having fallen into a heavy sleep, unusual at such an hour, and unaccounted for by any previous wakefulness. She called in a neighbour to look at the child, and almost simultaneously was shocked to find that she had given laudanum by mistake. Snatching up her boy, she ran to the nearest surgeon, who advised her to proceed at once to the Infirmary. This she 1 Published with the sanction of Dr Keiller and the Managers of the Royal Infirmary.