Notes of a case in which chrysophanic acid was administered internally by accident / by John Glaister.

  • Glaister, John, 1856-1932.
Date:
[1881?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of a case in which chrysophanic acid was administered internally by accident / by John Glaister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    six weeks elapsed between the exacerbations. She had then to remove to another part of the country, and from her medical attendant, Dr. May of Newcastle, I have received information from time to time as to her condition. His last communication, dated 2nd April of this year, contains the following:— Mdlle. C. has been quite well for the last two months or thereabouts. ... I kept her in bed for five or six weeks with a catheter and tube in bladder, &c.; she told me yesterday she had slight pains such as she used to have occasionally, but hardly noticeable; never any trace of hsemorrhage from bladder. Resume.—This patient was given a powder containing, by accident, a three-grain dose of chrysophanic acid, having been in fairly good health before. Within two hours after she is seized with the symptoms of irritant poisoning—burning pain in stomach, vomiting, pain in bowels, diarrhoea, hiematuria, and pain over bladder, with tenesmus. It would, therefore, seem clear that the symptoms followed the medicine—^^osi hoc propter hoc. It is also very evident from the symptoms that considerable irritation was produced in the gastro-intestinal and urinary tracts, occurring in that order. Hence, I infer that a dose of three grains acts as a strong irritant. The colour of the matter first vomited, and the urine, point to the chryso- phanic acid, because it is well known to produce coloured stains on linen coming in contact with it used in an oint- ment. But what are we to say about the bladder condition ? The prolonged retention of urine pointed to one of two things paralysis of the bladder through inflammation or disinclination to initiate the act of micturition owing to the great pain felt during that time. That there was inflammation of the bladder there can be no doubt, the persistent pain over that region indicating as much ; and that this inflammation had ended in ulceration I am inclined to believe, although some may gainsay it.^ I feared that the catheterism had had something to do with its production, but it was after the lengthened use of the catheter, when the parts had become accustomed to it, that the blood made its appearance, consequently I incline rather to the previous explanation. i^emar/cs.—Previous to this case I was not acquainted with the internal use of chrysophanic acid, and it was onlv in look- ing into the literature of this drug that I fell upon the recorded observations of Dr. Ashburton Thompson in the British Med-