as
intoxication (which Olshausen has noticed to follow irrigation of the
uterus), delirium, singultus, nausea, rigors, cephalalgia, tinnitus
aurium, and anasarca. Hind mentions recovery after the ingestion of
nearly six ounces of crude phenol of 14 per cent strength. There was a
case at the Liverpool Northern Hospital in which recovery took place
after the ingestion with suicidal intent of four ounces of crude
carbolic acid. Quoted by Lewin, Busch accurately describes a case which
may be mentioned as characteristic of the symptoms of carbolism. A boy,
suffering from abscess under the trochanter, was operated on for its
relief. During the few minutes occupied by the operation he was kept
under a two per cent carbolic spray, and the wound was afterward
dressed with carbolic gauze. The day following the operation he was
seized with vomiting, which was attributed to the chloroform used as an
anesthetic. On the following morning the bandages were removed under
the carbolic spray; during the day there was nausea, in the evening
there was collapse, and carbolic acid was detected in the urine. The
pulse became small and frequent and the temperature sank to 35.5
degrees C. The frequent vomiting made it impossible to administer
remedies by the stomach, and, in spite of hypodermic injections and
external application of analeptics, the boy died fifty hours after
operation.
Recovery has followed the ingestion of an ounce of officinal
hydrochloric acid. Black mentions a man of thirty-nine who recovered
after swallowing 1 1/2 ounces of commercial hydrochloric acid. Johnson
reports a case of poisoning from a dram of hydrochloric acid.
Tracheotomy was performed, but death resulted.
Burman mentions recovery after the ingestion of a dram of dilute
hydrocyanic acid of Scheele's strength (2.4 am. of the acid). In this
instance insensibility did not ensue until two minutes after taking the
poison, the retarded digestion being the means of saving life.
Quoting Taafe, in 1862 Taylor speaks of the case of a man who swallowed
the greater part of a solution containing an ounce of potassium cyanid.
In a few minutes the man was found insensible in the street, breathing
stertorously, and in ten minutes after the ingestion of the drug the
stomach-pump was applied. In two hours vomiting began, and thereafter
recovery was rapid.
Mitscherlich speaks of erosion of the gums and tongue with hemorrhage
at the slightest provocation, following the l
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