COLOCYNTHIS. 215 
A man swallowed three ounces of Colocynth in the hope of 
getting rid of a gonorrhea, which he had had for some days. 
In a short time, violent pains in the epigastrium, with excessive 
vomiting ; in about two hours there were copious alvine dejec- 
tions ; the sight was obscured; he heard with difficulty ; slight 
delirium came on, followed by vertigo. After some slight 
treatment, the symptoms gradually subsided (Orfila, Tox. Gén., 
vol. i. p. 695, 3rd edit.) 
A locksmith, aged twenty-eight years, subject to bleeding 
hemorrhoids, complained for some time of pains in the stomach 
and many other symptoms of dyspepsia. A German workman, 
his companion, promised to cure him radically by means of a 
domestic remedy. He took by his advice two glasses of a bitter 
decoction, which I found afterwards to be Colocynth. The 
remedy produced frequent evacuations, accompanied by colic; 
some hours after the patient complained of great heat in his 
intestines, a sensation of dryness in the throat, and an un- 
quenchable thirst. He came for me at night. The true cause 
of the disease was hidden from me. I found the patient witha 
small pulse, very accelerated; the tongue red; the abdomen 
tender and very painful to touch; the pain was fixed, and very 
severe near the umbilicus; the stools were suppressed. The 
next morning the abdomen was more inflated and more painful. 
The patient was placed in a tepid bath, and six hours after all 
the pains increased; there was retention of urine, painful 
retraction of the testicles, and priapism. The third day the 
retention of urine ceased, but the other symptoms continued ; 
the pulse was small and compressed; hiccough supervened ; 
the extremities became cold; the head and chest were covered 
with a greasy sweat; in the evening all the pain penned io 
the patient died in the night. On a post-mortem examination, 
the abdominal viscera showed the greatest disorganization ; the 
abdomen was filled with a whitish fluid, full of flocks of the 
same colour ; the intestines were ulcerated, scattered over with 
black spots, for the most part adhering and covered with false , 
