Opium.
Nitrate Of Silver (Lunar Caustic).
—Symptoms: Intense pain and vomiting, and purging of blood, mucus, and shreds of mucous membranes; and if these stand they become dark. Treatment: Give freely of a solution of common salt in water, which decomposes the poison, and afterwards flaxseed or slippery-elm-bark tea, and after a while a dose of castor oil.
Opium And All Its Compounds—morphine, Laudanum, Paregoric, Etc.
—Symptoms: Giddiness, drowsiness, increasing to stupor, and insensibility; pulse usually, at first, quick and irregular, and breathing hurried, and afterwards pulse slow and feeble, and respiration slow and noisy; the pupils are contracted and the eyes and face congested, and later, as death approaches, the extremities become cold, the surface is covered with cold, clammy perspiration, and the sphincters relax. The effects of opium and its preparations, in poisonous doses, appear in from a half to two hours from its administration. Treatment: Empty the stomach immediately with an emetic or with the stomach pump. Then give very strong coffee without milk; put mustard plasters on the wrists and ankles; douche the head and chest with cold water, and if the patient is cold and sinking, give brandy, or whisky and ammonia. Belladonna is thought by many to counteract the poisonous effects of opium, and may be given in doses of half to a teaspoonful of the tincture, or 2 grains of the extract, every 20 minutes, until some effect is observed in causing the pupils to expand. Use warmth and friction, and if possible prevent sleep for some hours, for which purpose the patient should be walked about between two persons. Finally, as a last resort, use artificial respiration, persistence in which will sometimes be rewarded with success in apparently hopeless cases. Electricity should also be tried.
Cooley advises as follows: Vomiting must be induced as soon as possible, by means of a strong emetic and tickling the fauces. If this does not succeed, the stomach pump should be applied. The emetic may consist of a half drachm of sulphate of zinc dissolved in a half pint of warm water, of which one-third should {96} be taken at once, and the remainder at the rate of a wineglassful every 5 or 10 minutes, until vomiting commences. When there is much drowsiness or stupor 1 or 2 fluidrachms of tincture of capsicum will be found a useful addition; or one of the formulas for emetic draughts may be taken instead. Infusion of galls, cinchona, or oak bark should be freely administered before the emetic, and water soured with vinegar and lemon juice, after the stomach has been well cleared out. To rouse the system spirit and water or strong coffee may be given. To keep the sufferer awake, rough friction should be applied to the skin, an upright posture preserved, and walking exercise enforced, if necessary. When this is ineffectual cold water may be dashed over the chest, head, and spine, or mild shocks of electricity may be had recourse to. To allow the sufferer to sleep is to abandon him to destruction. Bleeding may be subsequently necessary in plethoric habits, or in threatened congestion. The costiveness that accompanies convalescence may be best met by aromatic aperients; and the general tone of the habit restored by stimulating tonics and the shower bath. The smallest fatal dose of opium in the case of an adult within our recollection was 4 1/2 grains. Children are much more susceptible to the action of opium than of other medicines, and hence the dose of it for them must be diminished considerably below that indicated by the common method of calculation depending on the age.
Oxalic Acid.—See Acids.
Phosphorus—found In Lucifer Matches And Some Rat Poisons.
—Symptoms: Symptoms of irritant poisoning; pain in the stomach and bowels; vomiting, diarrhea; tenderness and tension of the abdomen. Treatment: An emetic is to be promptly given; copious draughts containing magnesia in suspension; mucilaginous drinks. General treatment for inflammatory symptoms.
Poisonous Mushrooms.
—Symptoms: Nausea, heat and pains in the stomach and bowels; vomiting and purging, thirst, convulsions, and faintings; pulse small and frequent, dilated pupil and stupor, cold sweats and death. Treatment: The stomach and bowels are to be cleared by an emetic of ground mustard or sulphate of zinc, followed by frequent doses of Glauber’s or of Epsom salts, and large stimulating clysters. After the poison is evacuated, either may be given with small quantities of brandy and water. But if inflammatory symptoms manifest themselves such stimuli should be avoided, and these symptoms appropriately treated. A hypodermic injection of 1/62 grain of atropine is the latest discovered antidote.
Potash.—See Alkali.
Prussic or Hydrocyanic Acid.—See Acids.
Poison Ivy.
—Symptoms: Contact with, and with many persons the near approach to, the vine gives rise to violent erysipelatous inflammation, especially of the face and hands, attended with itching, redness, burning, and swelling, with watery blisters. Treatment: Give saline laxatives, and apply weak sugar of lead and laudanum, or limewater and sweet oil, or bathe the parts freely with spirits of niter. Anointing with oil will prevent poisoning from it.
Saltpeter (Nitrate Of Potash).
—Symptoms: Only poisonous in large quantities, and then causes nausea, painful vomiting, purging, convulsions, faintness, feeble pulse, cold feet and hands, with tearing pains in stomach and bowels. Treatment: Treat as is directed for arsenic, for there is no antidote known, and emptying the stomach and bowels with mild drinks must be relied on.
Savine.
—Symptoms: Sharp pains in the bowels, hot skin, rapid pulse, violent vomiting and sometimes purging, with great prostration. Treatment: Mustard and hot fomentations over the stomach and bowels and ice allowed in the stomach only until the inflammation ceases. If prostration comes on, food and stimulants must be given by injection.
Stramonium, Thorn Apple, Or Jamestown Weed.
—Symptoms: Vertigo, headache, perversion of vision, slight delirium, sense of suffocation, disposition to sleep, bowels relaxed, and all secretions augmented. Treatment: Same as for belladonna.
Snake Bites, Cure For.
—The Inspector of Police in the Bengal Government reports that of 939 cases in which ammonia was freely administered, 207 victims have recovered, and in the cured instances the remedy was not administered till about 3 1/2 hours after the attack; on the average of the fatal cases the corresponding duration of time was 4 1/2 hours.
Strychnine Or Nux Vomica.
—The characteristic symptom is the special influence exerted upon the nervous system, {97} which is manifested by a general contraction of all the muscles of the body, with rigidity of the spinal column. A profound calm soon succeeds, which is followed by a new tetanic seizure, longer than the first, during which the respiration is suspended. These symptoms then cease, the breathing becomes easy, and there is stupor, followed by another general contraction. In fatal cases these attacks are renewed, at intervals, with increasing violence, until death ensues. One phenomenon which is found only in poisonings by substances containing strychnine is that touching any part of the body, or even threatening to do so, instantly produces the tetanic spasm. Antidote: The stomach should be immediately cleared by means of an emetic, tickling the fauces, etc. To counteract the asphyxia from tetanus, etc., artificial respiration should be practiced with diligence and care.
