Essays on infant therapeutics : to which are added observations on ergot ; history of the origin of the use of mercury in inflammatory complaints; together with the statistics of the deaths from poisoning in New York in the years 1841-2-3 / by John B. Beck.

  • Beck, John B. (John Brodhead), 1794-1851.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on infant therapeutics : to which are added observations on ergot ; history of the origin of the use of mercury in inflammatory complaints; together with the statistics of the deaths from poisoning in New York in the years 1841-2-3 / by John B. Beck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that “ the administration of three drops of lauda- num in a chalk mixture for diarrhoea, to a stout child, fourteen months old, was followed by- coma, convulsions, and death in six hours.” In another infant a few weeks old, death resulted from taking four drops of laudanum.* Dr. Ryan states that he has known one drop of the “ sedative liquor of opium ” narcotize an infant, f Pereira says, “ laudanum must be given to children with the greatest caution. I have seen a powerful effect produced in a very- young in- fant by one drop.”J Of laudanum, two drops have been known to kill an infant, nay, in one case, a single drop destroyed a new-born infant.§ I have myself seen a young child narcotized by about twenty drops of paregoric. The foregoing facts are sufficient to show that opium acts with peculiar energy and uncertainty upon the infant subject. The causes of this would seem to be the following: In the first place, the great difference in the physical organization of the infant and the adult. In the young subject the brain and nervous sys- tem are much more impressible, and the slightest causes, as we know, will sometimes derange them. Besides, in the infant, the circulation is more rapid -—there is a greater proportionate quantity of blood circulating in the brain, and hence a much * Treatise on Poisons. Second Edition, p. 625. f Midwifery, p. 477. % Mat. Med., voL ii., p. 714. § London Medical Gazette for 1839, p. 294.