1823.] On the Classification of Poisons, 181 



for the data from which the proof of poisoning is to be inferred, 

 are, as we have often stated, highly comphcated in their rela^ 

 tions. No such classification, however, can be accomplished^ 

 and we are therefore compelled to select one which may 

 approach the nearest to our imaginary fabric. That which ^as 

 proposed by Fodere, and adopted, with some trivial alteration in 

 the order of succession of the classes, by Orfila, in his celebrated 

 system of toxicology, although it has many defects and some 

 errors, nevertheless merits the preference of the forensic physi- 

 cian ; its basis is strictly pathological, and yet it distributes the 

 different poisons, with some few and unimportant exceptions, in 

 an order corresponding with that of their natural history. 



The first two classes, for instance, present us with substances 

 of a mineral origin ; the third and fourth, with those which are 

 principally of a vegetable nature ; and tlie sixth, with objects 

 chiefly belonging to the animal kingdom. The importance of 

 acknowledging a division, which has a reference to the three 

 great kingdoms of Nature, is perhaps greater than the reader 

 may anticipate ; for in enumerating the various experiments to 

 be instituted for the detection of poisons, we are, by such an 

 arrangement, enabled to bring together a connected series of 

 processes, nearly allied to, intimately connected with, and in 

 some respects, mutually dependant upon each other. 



The following is the arrangement of Fodere as modified by 

 Orfila ; viz. CI. I. Corrosive, or Escharotic poisons. CI. II. As- 

 tringent poisons. CI. III. Acrid or Rubefacient poisons. 

 CI. IV. Narcotic or Stupefying poisons. CI. V. Narotico-Acrid 

 poisons. And CI. VI. Septic or Putrefying poisons. 



Class I. Corrosive or Escharotic Poisons. — Such as corrode 

 and burn the textures to which they are applied. When inter- 

 nally administered, they give origin to the following symptoms : 

 violent pain, accompanied with a sense of heat and burning in 

 the stomach, and throughout the whole extent of the alimentary 

 canal ; frequent vomitings, often sanguineous, and alternating 

 with bloody diarrhoea, with or without tenesmus ; the pulse 

 hard, small, frequent, and at length imperceptible ; an icy cold- 

 ness of the body ; cold sweats ; a great anxiety and oppression 

 at the prsecordia ; and hiccup. Sometimes the heat of the skin 

 is intense, the thirst inextinguishable, and the unhappy patient 

 is tormented with Bysuria and Ischuria, violent cramps in the 

 extremities, and horrid convulsions, which are relieved only by 

 death. Such are the general symptoms by which this species 

 of poisoning is characterised ; the rapidity with which the symp- 

 toms tenninate their course will depend upon the violence of 

 the dose, and the particular species of poison which has pro- 

 duced them : there are, moreover, other symptoms which will be 

 more conveniently described, when we come to speak of the 

 effects of corrosive poisons individually. In this class are 



