ITS VITAL PROPERTIES, AND RELATIONS TO LIVING ORGANISM. 215 



respiratory movements, be not so profound as to occasion Asphyxia, or that death 

 do not result (as sometimes happens when the poison is taken in a state of con- 

 centration) from the immediate shock to the nervous system. Now the quantity 

 of alcohol which passes off by the ordinary excretions is extremely slight ; in 

 fact, this substance can seldom be detected in them. But there can be no reason- 

 able doubt that the elimination of the alcohol is due to its oxidation whilst pass- 

 ing through the circulating system, so that it is excreted by the lungs in the 

 form of carbonic acid and water; and if confirmation of this view were needed, it 

 is afforded by the tolerance of large doses of alcohol, which is shown when it is 

 subjected with peculiar rapidity to the combustive operation, as during continued 

 exposure to severe cold or prolonged muscular exertion, or in the exhaustation 

 of wasting diseases when no other combustive material remains in the body. 

 The same explanation is obviously applicable to the parallel phenomena, which 

 present themselves in the action of opium, strychnia, prussic acid, &c. With 

 all these, also, the question of life or death is one of time ; for if the fatal result 

 do not speedily follow the absorption of the poison into the blood, the patient 

 gradually recovers from its effects; and the most effectual treatment consists in 

 the artificial maintenance of the respiratory movements, which the influence of 

 these poisons upon the nervous centres might otherwise suspend. These poisons 

 cannot be detected in the circulating fluid by their sensible or chemical charac- 

 ters, if a short interval has elapsed subsequently to their absorption ; thus it has 

 been found by Dr. Lonsdale that the odor of prussic acid cannot be perceived in 

 the blood or in the cavities, when life had been prolonged beyond 15 minutes, 

 although, when death took place within a shorter time, the poison might be 

 detected in the body by its odor alone for eight or nine days afterwards; and 

 the presence of morphia ceases to be recognizable by the ordinary chemical tests, 

 within a short time after it has been taken into the circulating current. Even 

 with regard to certain poisons of this unstable class, however, there is evidence 

 that they pass into the urine and are thus eliminated, without undergoing any 

 change that impairs their physiological action; this evidence being afforded by 

 the effects of the reingestion of the urine, either by the individuals them- 

 selves, or by others. A very curious example of this kind is afforded by the 

 intoxicating fungus, Amanita muscaria, which is used by some of the inhabi- 

 tants of the north-eastern parts of Asia in the same manner as alcoholic liquors 

 by other nations. Its effects, like those of other excitants, have a limited dura- 

 tion; for a man who is intoxicated by it one day, " sleeps himself sober" by the 

 next. His restoration is due, however, not to his repose, but to the elimination 

 of the poison which takes place during the interval ; for if he drink a cup of his 

 urine the next morning, he is yet more powerfully intoxicated than he was the 

 preceding day; and the fluid has the same effect upon any other individual, into 

 whose urine the active principle then passes; so that, according to the testimony 

 of travellers, the intoxicating agent may be transmitted in this manner through 

 five or six persons, a small stock at the commencement thus serving to maintain 

 a week's debauch. Results of the same order have been obtained by Dr. Letheby 

 in regard to opium, belladonna, hemlock, aconite, &c. ; the passage of these sub- 

 stances into the urine being proved by the induction of their characteristic effects, 

 when that fluid was administered to other animals. It is probable that, as in 

 the case of lactic acid ( 49), the appearance of these substances in the urine is 

 due to their presence in the blood in such quantity, that the oxidizing process does 

 not promote their elimination through the lungs with sufficient rapidity. 



209. Between the substances which admittedly rank as poisons, and those 

 which are reckoned as materies morborum, no definite line of demarcation can 

 be drawn ; and the train of symptoms produced by the operation of the former, 

 is really as much a disease as that which results from the presence of the latter. 

 The connection is, in fact, established by those "animal poisons" which are the 



