AN IRRITANT POISON 671 



and sloughing with suppuration ensue. When the true 

 skin has thus been seriously inflamed, the hair bulbs are 

 injured ; the hair is removed, and permanent baldness and 

 blemishing may result. As a vesicant it is most powerful 

 on horses and dogs, and less powerful on cattle, swine, and 

 poultry. 



TOXIC EFFECTS. Orfila found that ' three drachms of the 

 tincture, with eight grains of powder suspended in it, caused 

 the death of a dog in twenty-four hours, if retained in the 

 stomach by a ligature on the gullet, insensibility being the 

 chief symptom ; and that forty grains of the powder killed 

 another dog in four hours and a half, although he was 

 allowed to vomit. When administered by the stomach, 

 that organ was found much inflamed after death ; and if 

 given in the form of powder, fragments of the poison were 

 generally discernible. When applied to a wound, the 

 powder excites surrounding inflammation ; and a drachm 

 will, in this way, prove fatal in thirty-two hours, without 

 any constitutional symptom except languor ' (Christison). 

 An ounce of powdered cantharides administered to a horse 

 caused death in eighteen hours. In most cases the pulse 

 becomes small and frequent, respiration quick and dyspnoeic, 

 there is restlessness and excitement, followed by coma and 

 collapse. 



The treatment of the gastro-intestinal or urinary irritation 

 consists in the free use of mucilaginous drinks with opiates. 

 Oils and fats are inadmissible on account of their favouring 

 solution of any unabsorbed poison. When constitutional 

 irritation has resulted from absorption of the cantharidin 

 from a blistered surface, this should be dressed with soothing 

 remedies. 



MEDICINAL USES. Small, repeated doses are occasionally 

 prescribed in chronic nasal catarrh. In such cases Robertson 

 gave it with copaiba. It is sometimes serviceable in 

 chronic cystitis ; while giving tone to the bladder, small 

 doses prevent involuntary escape of urine. In some parts 

 of Germany it is given to cows which are tardy in coming to 

 service ; but its aphrodisiac effects on either sex are un- 

 certain, and seldom produced except by dangerously large 

 doses. When administered for some time, small vesicles 



