CHAPTER IV.

ON POISONING WITH PHOSPHORUS AND THE OTHER BASES OF THE MINERAL ACIDS.

Or Poisoning with Phosphorus.-The only other mineral acid that deserves mention is the phosphoric. It possesses properties nearly analogous, and hardly inferior to those of the three acids already mentioned. On its own account, however, it does not merit any notice here, since it is much too rare to be within reach of a person who intends to give or take poison. But it must be attended to, because it is formed in the course of the action of a more common poison, Phosphorus.

Orfila found that two drachms of phosphorus given to dogs. in fragments caused death in twenty-one hours, that the whole stomach and intestines were more or less inflamed, and that the phosphorus had lost much of its weight, though vomiting had been prevented by a ligature on the gullet ;-in fact the poison was partly oxidated. In a state of minute division, as when dissolved in oil, twenty-four grains caused death in less than five hours with all the symptoms of the most acute irritant poisoning; and after death the stomach was found extensively corroded, and perforated by two holes. Other experimentalists have found that half a grain melted in hot water could kill a dog; and that water, in which phosphorus had been simply received in the process for preparing it, proved in small quantities fatal to poultry ‡.

There is no doubt, therefore, that phosphorus is a dangerous poison to animals. Its effects on man have not been often witnessed; but the observations hitherto made will show that it is not less injurious to him than to the lower animals. A grain and a-half have actually proved fatal to man, as appears from a case mentioned by M. Worbe§. The subject of the case was a stout young man who took a grain and a-half in hot water, after having previously taken half a grain without sustaining injury. • Toxicologie Générale, i. 56.

+ Worbe in Mémoires de la Société Médicale d'Emulation, ix. 507.

Annales de Chimie, xxvii. 87.

§ Worbe, &c. and Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, xxviii. 228.

In seven hours, and not till then, he was attacked with pain in the stomach and bowels, then with incessant vomiting and diarrhoea, excessive tenderness and tension of the belly,—all the symptoms in short of irritant poisoning; and he died exhausted in twelve days.-Another fatal case somewhat similar in its circumstances has been related by M. Julia-Fontenelle*. An apothecary after taking in one day first a single grain and then two grains of phosphorus without experiencing any particular effects, swallowed next day three grains at once in syrup. In the evening he felt generally uneasy, from a sense of pressure in the belly, which continued for three days; and then he was also seized with violent, continual vomiting of a matter which had an alliaceous odour. On the seventh day he had also spasms, delirium, and palsy of the left hand; and death speedily ensued. -In the only other case I have hitherto found recorded death took place in forty hours, and the symptoms were violent pain in the stomach, and continual vomiting, together with the discharge by clysters of small fragments of phosphorus, which were discovered by their shining in the dark, and subsequently by the appearance of burnt spots on the bed-linen. In this case, which is described by Dr Flachsland of Carlsruhe †, the quantity of the poison taken was not ascertained. The patient, a young man, took it on bread and butter at the recommendation of a quack, to cure constipation, general debility, and impotence.

At one time it was the custom to give small doses of phosphorus in medical practice; but the uncertainty and occasional severity of its operation have perhaps properly expelled it from most modern pharmacopoeias. Among other properties ascribed to it in medicinal doses, it was said to be a powerful aphrodisiac: No such symptom was remarked in the first of the fatal cases just related.

As to the morbid appearances, the same changes of structure may be expected as in the instance of the mineral acids generally. In Worbe's case quoted above, the skin was generally yellow, and here and there livid; the lungs gorged with blood; the muscular coat of the stomach inflamed, but the other coats not,

Revue Médicale, 1829, iii. 429.

† Medizinisch-Chirurgische Zeitung, 1826, iv. 183.

except near the two extremities of the organ, where they were black. In Flachsland's case much fluid blood was discharged from the first incisions through the skin of the belly; the omentum and outside of the stomach and intestines were red; the villous coat of the stomach presented an appearance of gangrenous inflammation (probably black extravasation only); the inner membrane of the duodenum was similarly affected; the great intestines were contracted to the size of the little finger; the mesenteric glands enlarged; and the kidneys and spleen inflamed.

Phosphorous Acid, the effects of which have been lately examined experimentally by Professor Hünefeld of Greifswalde, differs in its operation from phosphoric acid. Twenty-five grains had no effect on a rabbit; but a drachm caused difficult breathing, restlessness, bloody vomiting, slight convulsions, and death in twelve hours; and the stomach was found not much injured. The urine contained phosphoric acid *.

Of poisoning with Sulphur.-It does not appear that sulphur, which resembles phosphorus in many particulars, bears any resemblance to it in physiological properties;-which may be ascribed to its not being susceptible of spontaneous acidification. It certainly possesses, however, slight irritating properties. It is often given as a purgative, which is sufficient to prove that it is not altogether inert; and the veterinary school at Lyons found that a pound killed horses by producing violent inflammation, recognizable during life by the symptoms, and after death by the morbid appearances +.

Of poisoning with Chlorine.-Chlorine in its gaseous state acts powerfully as an irritant on the windpipe and lungs, and on that account will be noticed under the head of the poisonous gases. But even in solution it retains to a certain degree its poisonous qualities. Orfila says that five ounces of a strong solution of chlorine will kill a dog in twenty-four hours, if it is kept in the stomach by a ligature, and that two ounces diluted with twice its volume of water will prove fatal in four days;—that the symptoms are those of irritation of the stomach;

Horn's Archiv. für Medizinische Erfahrung, 1830, ii. 861.

+ Corvisart's Journal de Médecine, xxi. 70.

-and that in the former case he found general redness and blackness-in the latter ulceration of its villous coat *.

Of poisoning with Iodine.—Iodine is a poison of more consequence than chlorine, both because it is becoming a more common article, and because it is more violent in its effects on the animal economy.

Iodine when pure is a solid substance easily known by its brownish, scaly appearance, its peculiar odour, the violet fumes it forms when heated, and the fine blue colour it produces with a solution of starch.

When dissolved in water or in solutions of neutral salts, it communicates to the fluid a yellowish-brown or reddish-brown colour, which is destroyed by sulphuretted hydrogen. In the colourless fluid thus formed, if treated with a drop or two of sulphuric acid, or in the original brown fluid without sulphuric acid, a solution of starch, obtained by ebullition and subsequently cooled, produces a fine blue colour and precipitate; and these, if the solution be sufficiently diluted, disappear on boiling, reappear on sudden cooling, and are removed permanently by a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen. This is a very delicate and characteristic system of tests.

When mingled with organic substances, the discovery of it is a matter of some nicety. This subject has been examined with success by Dr O'Shaughnesseyt. He first shows that by admixture with organic substances, especially in the alimentary canal during life, it quickly undergoes important changes, which must not be lost sight of in a medico-legal analysis. It unites with albumen, forming a substance nearly insoluble in alcohol, and also with fecula, forming the usual blue compound; if it has been also some time in the stomach it is converted into hydriodic acid by means of certain obscure vital operations; and this conversion takes place so quickly, that few cases can occur in medico-legal practice, where iodine will be discoverable in its free state. In addition to these sources of difficulty he has also remarked that where iodine exists in a free state in such mixtures starch may not act on it, because its particles are enveloped and protected by mucus or other organic matters ;--and farther, that the starch may not present its characteristic action in consequence of the deep colour of the mixture.

* Toxicologie Générale, i. 141.

+ Lancet, 1829-30, ii. 632.

These facts being kept in view, he suggests a new process for detecting iodine in such mixtures. [See Hydriodate of Potass, p. 184.] The following method of analysis, however, has appeared to me preferable.

Process for Compound mixtures. Add water if necessary, and filter. If either the fluid or solid part is little or not at all coloured, test it with cold solution of starch, assisting the action of the test on the solid part by trituration in a mortar. If a blue colour be struck, which disappears under ebullition, and reappears either under refrigeration alone, or on the subsequent addition of a drop of sulphuric acid, there can be no doubt of the existence of iodine.-If the colour of the suspected mixture after filtration is so deep that the action of the starch cannot be expected to yield characteristic appearances, then both the solid and fluid parts should be agitated with a third of their volume of ether; and after the etherial solution has risen to the surface, it is to be removed and tested with the solution of starch. The blue colour will be now perhaps struck, because the ether, in carrying off the iodine from the mixture, leaves many coloured organic principles behind.

Should free iodine not be thus detected, strong presumptive evidence may still be procured of its actual presence, or of its having been at one time present, by continuing the examination with the view to detect hydriodic acid. This is described in p. 182.

By following this method of analysis, I have found that one grain of iodide of potassium, which is equivalent to three quarters of a grain of iodine, may be easily discovered in six ounces of urine, which is as complicated a fluid as can well be conceived.

Iodine has a twofold action, one local and irritating, the other general, and produced only when it has been administered long in frequent small doses.

Orfila remarked that in doses of two drachms it excited in dogs symptoms of irritation in the stomach; that death slowly ensued in seven days, without the symptoms having ever become very violent; and that the villous coat of the stomach was here and there yellow, had also patches of yellow mucus lining it, and exhibited numerous little ulcers of a yellow colour.

An important circumstance in regard to the physiology and

M