On poisons, in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine / by Alfred S. Taylor ; edited, with notes and additions, by R. Eglesfeld Griffith.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On poisons, in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine / by Alfred S. Taylor ; edited, with notes and additions, by R. Eglesfeld Griffith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the chloride of barium,—tartar emetic, and nitrate of silver in the blood and faeces. (For the details see Ann. d'Hyg. April 1843, 415.) According to the researches of Dr. Percy, it would appear that alcohol also enters into the blood, and is conveyed to the brain, in which organ, as well as in the liver, he succeeded in detecting it by a common process of distillation. He also found it in the blood, bile, and urine. Still more recently M. Lassaigne has detected ether in the serum of venous blood of animals which had respired ether vapour. By a series of ingenious experiments on the barometric tension of the vapour of the serum before and after the inhalation, compared with the barometric ten- sion of the vapour of ether diluted with water in a known proportion, he esti- mated that the quantity of ether dissolved in the blood was equal to 0*0008 of its mass. Its effect was to increase the proportion of serum and reduce that of the coagulum (Gas. Med. 13 Mars, 1847, 209.) It is more easy to determine the presence than the proportion of these substances absorbed into the blood; but we shall see hereafter that the quantity of arsenic and some other poisons may be in certain cases approximately estimated. Almost all those poisons which are susceptible of detection by chemical analysis, have been found by various toxicologists, in the blood, the secretions, or the soft organs of the body of animals to which they have been administered. Cyanide of mercury and chloride of barium have been detected in the blood of the vena portae and of the splenic vein of the horse. Wohler found in the urine of dogs and horses iodine, sulphuret of potassium, nitrate of potash, sulphocyanide of potassium, the salts of nickel, the oxalic, tartaric, citric, malic, gallic, succinic and benzoic acids. Orfila has detected arsenious and arsenic acids—the arsenites—the soluble arseniates, tartarised antimony, iodine, potash, barytes and its salts, the mineral acids, sulphuric, nitric, and muriatic—ammonia, muriate of ammonia, and the soluble salts of copper, lead, mercury, gold, and silver. Whether the poison was introduced into the stomach, or applied externally, he equally de- tected it in the blood (Toxicologie, i. 8.) Poisons thus absorbed are either deposited in the organs, or slowly elimi- nated in the secretions, if the individual should survive the effects. These agents appear to fix themselves more in certain organs and secretions than in others. Thus, for example, in cases of arsenical poisoning, the liver, probably from its containing an enormous quantity of blood, and from its proximity to the stomach, is generally more strongly impregnated with arsenic than the other soft organs. The proportion of absorbed arsenic found in it is, accord- ing to M. Flandin, nine-tenths of the whole quantity carried into the circula- tion. When arsenic is not found in the contents of the stomach, and death has taken place within the usual period, it may commonly be detected in the liver. In one case of arsenical poisoning, I was unable to procure any trace of arsenic from four ounces of blood; but procured abundant evidence of th*e presence of the poison from the examination of the liver. It is important, therefore, in disinterring a dead body for examination, to remove the liver as well as the stomach. Orfila has found that arsenic most readily passes off, during life, by the urine; while MM. Danger and Flandin think that it escapes by the liver, and pulmo- nary and cutaneous exhalations (Flandin, i. 568.) They have ascertained that the salts of copper when taken as poisons, are on the other hand, more readily detected in the bronchial secretion than in the urine (Ann. d'Hydg. 1843,452.) The heart and kidneys were found to contain no copper in animals poisoned by this metal. The fact that poisons are continually eliminated in the secretions during life, is of considerable importance in reference to a chemical analysis, for, to take arsenic as an example,—if the dose has been small, and the person has -survived the effects for a certain period, it is not likely that the poison will 3*