TOXIC EFFECTS 305 



dissolved in oil, stimulates growth of bones, and is occasion- 

 ally prescribed as a nerve tonic, alterative, and aphrodisiac. 

 These effects on the nervous system are by no means reliable. 

 Its effect on bone formation is more important. With 

 minute but continued doses cancellous bone becomes denser 

 and the outer compact layer of bone is thickened. If an 

 excess is given the bones are deformed, the medullary cavity 

 enlarged, and an appearance like rickets is produced. Full 

 doses when swallowed cause gastro-enteritis. Repeated 

 doses break up the albuminoid textures by accelerating 

 normal autolysis and induce fatty degeneration. 



Toxic EFFECTS. A piece of yellow phosphorus, or a strong 

 solution applied to the skin, abstracts oxygen and produces 

 limited inflammation, sometimes terminating in gangrene. 

 When swallowed most of it is slowly dissolved by the bile and 

 any fatty matters with which it comes into contact, whilst 

 some of the drug is converted into phosphoretted hydrogen 

 gas. It exerts on the alimentary tract its local irritant 

 effects ; minute doses are gastro-intestinal tonics ; larger 

 doses cause diarrhoea and emesis in animals that vomit ; 

 while fifteen grains cause gastro-enteritis in horses and cattle. 

 Often these acute symptoms may pass off to reappear in two 

 or three days' time, when the drug is being excreted. There 

 is a peculiar characteristic smell of garlic in vomited material 

 which may be phosphorescent in the dark. Larger doses, 

 such as thirty grains in horses or cattle, and half a grain to a 

 grain in dogs or men, produce paresis, convulsions, coma, 

 and death usually within two or three days. The paresis 

 occasionally affects the heart, causing sudden death. 

 Moderate to full doses, repeated several times daily, within 

 a few days produce fatty degeneration of the albuminoid 

 tissues, hypertrophy of connective structures, and acute 

 cirrhosis. The toxic doses are : horses, grs. xv. to grs. xxiv. ; 

 dogs, grs. 1J to grs. jv. It is excreted by the kidneys and 

 lungs, chiefly as phosphorus and phosphoric acids. But 

 these acids and the salts they form have not, however, the 

 specific action of phosphorus. 



The antidotes consist in emptying the stomach by emetics 

 (copper sulphate, ipecacuanha), or the pump, or by washing 

 it out with potassium permanganate solution, which forms 



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