332 A CASE OF POISONING. 



patients ; moreover, I made them swallow floods of warm 

 water, sweetened with a little honey, that is, a large tea- 

 spoonful of honey to a cupful of water. 



I had much difficulty to get one of the sufferers, who was 

 sixty years old, to swallow the first few spoonfuls. He was 

 plunged into a lethargic insensibility differing in no respect 

 from complete apoplexy ; his teeth were closely set Those 

 whom I had ordered to administer the mixture had given it 

 up, after several useless attempts ; and in all probability the 

 old man would have sunk, had I not had the patience to hold, 

 for some hours, against his teeth the back of the blade of a 

 small silver knife, so as to profit by the few moments when 

 the teeth were a little less firmly clenched. I used some force 

 to make the blade act as a wedge, and after a while opened 

 up a passage to the handle, which, serving as a lever, forced 

 the jaws sufficiently apart to admit the introduction of a spoon- 

 ful of the emetic. It was not, however, until fully two hours 

 had passed that the patient, having undoubtedly swallowed 

 the necessary dose, began to vomit, with strenuous efforts 

 and frightful cries. This was at midnight. Four in the 

 morning arrived before, after numerous alternations of vomit- 

 ing and profound lethargy, he began to speak, and then like 

 a man in delirium. After the first vomit, which was incon- 

 siderable, the convulsions of his whole body were so very 

 violent as to require four men to hold him, while I continued 

 to make use of my knife as at first. Nor did I desist until I 

 was satisfied that his stomach had been sufficiently cleansed. 

 After this, I applied two strong blisters to the back of his legs. 



