COLCHICUM. 207 
vomiting, violent colicky pains, and frequent diarrhcea, suc- 
ceeded by difficulty of breathing, and discharge of bloody 
urine. After death, patches of mortification were found in the 
stomach and duodenum (Pharmac. Times, Jan. 23, 1847). 
A man, aged fifty-six years, of a feeble constitution, and a 
prey to chronic rheumatism, swallowed, by mistake, one ounce 
and a half of Vinum Colchici; in about half an hour he was 
seized with severe pain in the abdomen, and nausea, followed 
by vomiting and constant alvine dejections, often involuntary ; 
these symptoms continued during the night and the greater part 
of the following day, then the alvine evacuations ceased, but the 
nausea continued; the day after taking the poison he was seized 
with most violent thirst, which continued till his death; the 
pains in the stomach and intestines were excessively acute; to- 
wards evening delirium came on, and he died the following 
morning. On examination after death, no trace of inflammation 
could be discovered in the intestines, the stomach only was red 
(Edin. Journ., April, 1818). 
Susan Laing, about thirty years of age, of good health and 
constitution ; she was about two months in pregnancy, and hav- 
ing read in a newspaper that a woman was taken up for causing 
abortion by taking Meadow Saffron, she determined on getting 
rid of her burthen by a similar measure. She accordingly 
bought twopenny-worth and made an infusion of it, which 
she took on an empty stomach early in the morning of the 10th 
of March, 1827. I was called to her about four o’clock in the 
afternoon of the 11th, and on inquiry learned she had mis- 
carried the preceding evening. I found her in a very hopeless 
state; her extremities were quite cold, and the whole of her 
body, particularly the hands, feet, and face, livid. The glassy 
stare of impending death was in her eyes, the respiration was 
hurried, and the pulse could not be felt at the carotids, and but 
faintly at the heart. Notwithstanding, the sensorium was undis- 
turbed, and she gave me a clear account of what she had done, 
her motives for so doing, and the effects the poison had on her. 
R2 
