POISONS. ration by means of mild purgatives, diluting drinks, and a spare, low diet. Barley water, tamarind tea, and any thing of a simple nature should be taken freely; but fermented liquors, and every kind of animal food, must be avoided. All the drink should be tepid. When the measles suddenly disappear, every exertion must be made in order to restore the eruption. The patient must be placed in a warm bath, and warm wine and water, with ten drops of antimonial wine, frequently given. It may also be necessary to apply blisters to the inside of the thighs or legs, and to the throat. After the patient has recovered, it will be expedient to give two or three doses of cooling, opening medicines, and to cautiously avoid exposure to cold. SECTION II. POISONS.-SUSPENDED ANIMATION. POISONS may be defined substances which prove fatal to the life of animals, whether taken by the mouth, mixed with the blood, or applied to the nerves by friction of the skin, or other means. Most of the substances called poisons are only so in certain doses; when given in smaller quantities, they are, many of them, active medicines. Others are fatal in the smallest quantities: such are those of hydrophobia, and the plague. As we cannot treat of poisons at large, we think our object will be best accomplished by the following tabular statements; the first column containing the names of the poisons; the second the symptoms, and the last, the remedies. But we nevertheless advise, in every case where poisons have been taken, recourse to the best medical assistance at once. Substances. Symptoms. Remedies. CONCENTRA. Burning pain, vomiting; Calcined magnesia; one ounce to TED ACIDS: matter thrown up effer- a pint of warm or cold water. A The vitriolic or vescing with chalk, salt of sulphuric, nitric, tartar, lime or magnesia. nuriatic,oxalic, &c ALKALIES. Nearly the same; but glassful to be taken every two minutes, so as to excite vomiting. Soap, or chalk and water; mucilaginous drinks afterwards, such as lint-seed tea or gum-arabic and water. Vinegar or lemon juice; a spoonPotash, Soda, ejected matter does not effer- ful or two in a glass of water very ammonia, lime, vesce with alkalies, but frequently; simple warm water. &c. · acids. Substances. MERCURIAL TIONS: mate, &c. ARSENICAL PREPARA TIONS: White arsenic, &c. PREPARATIONS of COP. PER: Brass, verdigris, half-pence, &c. PREPARATIONS of ANTIMONY: Emetic Tartar, &c. NITRE, or SALTPETRE. PHOSPHORUS. LEAD : Sugar of lead, Gou. lard's extract, &c. Sense of constriction in White of eggs; twelve or fif the throat matter vomit- teen eggs beaten up, and mixed ed sometimes mixed with with a quart of cold water. A blood. glassful every three minutes; milk, gum, water, lintseed tea. Warm water with sugar, in large quantities, to excite vomiting. Lime-water, soap and water, pearlash and water, mucilaginous drinks. White of eggs; mucilaginous drinks. See MERCURIAL PREPARATIONS, above. Warm water or sugar and water; afterwards grain of opium, or fifteen drops of laudanum every quarter of an hour, for two or three times. The same as for arsenic, with theexception of lime water and alka lies. Like mineral acids. Large doses of Glauber's or Epsom salts, in warm water. Substances. GLASS, or ALCOHOL: Brandy, rum, gin, wine, &c. IRRITATING VEGETABLE POISONS: Monk's hood, meadow saffron, ipecacuanha, hellebore, bear's foot, savine, &c. POISONS. Symptoms. If taken in coarse pow. der, produces irritation and inflammation of the bowels. Intoxication; when taken in large quantities, insen sibility, apoplexy, or paralysis; countenance swoln, and of a dark red color; breathing difficult; often death. he Acrid taste; excessive Remedies. Large quantities of crumb of bread should be eaten; afterward an emetic of white vitriol, and demulcent drinks. A powerful emetic of white vitriol, or emetic tartar, vomiting to be encouraged by warm water and large clysters of salt water; bleed. ing; if the head be very hot, cold wet cloths may be applied; if the extremeties be cold, friction. If vomiting be produced by the at; violent vomiting; poison, large draughts of warm wapurging; great pain in ter, or thin gruel, to render it easier. the stomach and bowels. If insensibility be present, white Externally applied, many vitriol, or other active emetic: after of them produce inflamma- the operation of which a brisk purtion, blisters, pustules. gative; then a strong infusion of coffee or vinegar diluted with water. Substances. POISONOUS FISH: POISONS. Symptoms. In an hour or two or Remedies. An emetic: vomiting to be ex sooner after soine fish have cited by tickling the throat with Oldwife, lobster, been exten, more especially the finger, and by draughts of crab, dolphin, con- if stale, weight at the sto- warm water. After vomiting, an ger eel, muscle, &c. mach, sickness, giddiness, active purgatives afterwards vinethirst, &c. come on: in gar and water, or water sweetened some cases, death. with sugar, and an addition of ether. After the evacuations, laudanum. POISONOUS A sharp pain in the A moderately tight ligature to wounded part, soon extend- be applied above the bite, and the The viper, or adder, ing over the body: great wound left to bleed, after being rattle snake, &c. swelling: first hard and washed with warm water. The pale, then reddish: faint actual cautery, lunar caustic, or ings, vomitings, convul- butter of antimony to be applied: sions: inflammation, often the lint dipped in equal parts of extensive suppuration, gan- olive oil and spirit of hartshorn. grene, and death. SPANISH FLIES. VENOMOUS Ligature to be removed if the inflammation be considerable. Warm diluting drinks with small doses of ammonia or hartshorn, to cause perspiration. The patient should he well covered in bed, drinking occasionally warm wine. If gan grene threaten, wine and bark must be freely given. Nanseons odor of the Vomiting freely excited by breath; burning heat in sweet oil, sugar and water, or lint the throat and stomach; seed tea: emollient clysters. Canvomiting, often bloody; phor dissolved in oil may be rub painful priapism, heat in bed over the belly and thighs. the bladder, convulsions, delirium, death. INSECTS: In general only a slight Hartshorn and oil, salt and wa Tarantula, scorpi. degree of pain and swell ter; a few drops of hartshorn may on, hornet, wasp, ing sometimes sickness be taken internally in a glass of wabee, gnat, &c. : and fever. ter. The sting may, in general, be removed by making a strong pressure over it with the barrel of a snall watch key. In many cases of poisoning, emetics are necessary, in order to remove the poison from the stomach. It has, however, been proved, that a late invention, The STOMACH PUMP, is much more expeditiously effectual than emetics, and is now very often resorted to by medical practitioners for such purposes; but the use of this instrument can scarcely be confided to inexperienced hands. POISON from the inhalation of, or being immersed in noxious gas. Whenever persons are found in a state of apparent death from being POISON.-DROWNING. immersed in, or having inhaled noxious gas, whether from the fumes of burning charcoal, the exhalations of lime-kilns, the gas from fermenta. tions, the choak-damp of mines, the gas from wells, or the gas in the lower parts of caverns, the following method must be pursued for their recovery. Expose the patient to atmospheric air without any fear of the cold; remove all his clothes and place him upon his back, with the head and breast somewhat elevated so as to promote respiration. On no ac. count administer tobacco fumigations or place the sufferer in a warm bed. Give a few glasses of lemon-juice and water, or vinegar weakened by the addition of three parts water; sprinkle the body, particu. larly the face and breast, with cold vinegar; after this rub the body with cloths steeped in vinegar, camphorated spirits of wine, or any other spirituous fluid; at the end of two or three minutes wipe the parts which have been wetted, with a warm towel, and after the interval of two or three minutes, recommence the sprinkling and rubbing with cold vinegar and spirits. These means must be persevered in for some time. Irritate the soles of the feet, and palms of the hands, and the whole course of the back with a brush; administer a clyster consisting of one part vinegar and two parts water; after a few minutes administer another prepared with two ounces of common salt and one ounce of Epsom salts dissolved in water. Irritate the nostrils by a little roll of paper or a feather; or burning matches, or volatile alkali, taking care that the phial containing this last article be not held long at the nose. The lungs should also be inflated. All these methods failing, the patient should be bled in the foot if the face continue red, the lips swoln, and the eyes as it were starting from their sockets. Emetics should be avoided, except where persons recovering are troubled with excessive nausea; when the patient is restored to his senses, he may be put into a warm bed in an apartment having all the windows open. He may then take a few spoonsful of some good wine, as Sherry, or Madeira; the wine may be warmed and sugar added. It has often happened that five or six hours have elapsed before persons have been restored. A well attested account has recently been published, of the speedy recovery of a person who had become insensible by reason of noxious vapor, at the bottom of a well, by means of cold water dashed from above on his head. DROWNING is the act of suffocating or being suffocated, by a total immersion in water. The length of time during which a person may remain in this element, without being drowned, is very unequal in different individuals, and depends as much on the temperature of the water as on the particular constitution of the subject; in general, . however, there is less prospect of recovery, after having continued fifteen minutes in a watery grave. In such cases, death ensues from impeded respiration, and the consequent ceasing of the circulation of the blood, by which the body loses its heat, and with that the activity of the vital principle. Dr. Goodwyn justly observes, that the water produces all the changes which take place in drowning, only indirectly, by excluding the atmospheric air from the lungs, as they admit but |