454 CROTON OIL TOXIC EFFECTS 



operating with certainty when most other purgatives fail, 

 and, if carefully used, is rarely attended with evil con- 

 sequences. For sheep it is too irritating and depressing 

 to be generally prescribed. For dogs and pigs it is an 

 effectual drastic purge, requiring, however, as in other 

 patients, to be used with much caution. W. Rutherford 

 and Vignal have shown that, although causing great dilata- 

 tion of the vessels of the intestinal mucous membrane it 

 has no special cholagogue action. 



Toxic EFFECTS. Forty seeds destroyed a horse in seven 

 hours, with acute gastro-enteritis ; half that quantity 

 usually produced fatal inflammation (Hertwig). Morton 

 administered twenty bruised seeds to two horses and 

 observed superpurgation, accelerated pulse and respira- 

 tion, injected mucous membranes, collapse, and death in 

 eighteen and twenty-four hours. Medicinal doses some- 

 times cause, alike in horses and dogs, unexpected and 

 serious irritation. In India the seeds are occasionally used 

 to poison horses. Orfila gave a dog three drachms, which 

 killed him in three hours ; one drachm was also fatal ; 

 while Hertwig found that ten or twelve grains induced 

 violent purgation, gastro-enteritis, and death in four to 

 seven hours, if vomiting was prevented by tying the oeso- 

 phagus. About the same quantity of the bruised seed or 

 oil, which proves fatal when given internally, has the like 

 effect when placed in the areolar tissues, or applied to a 

 wound. Hertwig states that eight drops injected into the 

 jugular vein killed a horse, while two drops killed a dog. 

 Moiroud records that twelve drops injected into the veins 

 of a horse produced in a few minutes alvine evacuations, 

 while thirty drops were quickly fatal. Fifty drops in alco- 

 holic solution, applied to the belly of a small horse, induced, 

 for two days, alvine evacuations of normal consistence, 

 but three or four times more abundant than usual. Thirty 

 drops had similar effects on sheep, fifteen to twenty on 

 dogs (Hertwig). 



Post-mortem examination discovers inflammation of the 

 small and large intestines. In horses poisoned, the caecum 

 and colon are especially affected, usually exhibiting much 

 extravasation of blood, and occasionally patches of erosion ; 



