Treatment of Poisoning, 479 



CHAPTER II. 



POISONS AND THE TREATMENT OF POISONING. 



General Rules for the Treatment of Poisoning, 

 Vegetable Poisons : — Aloes — Castor and Croton Seeds — Dis- 

 eased and Spoiled Foods — Eupatorium — Hellebore — Laurel 

 — Poisonous MusTiroooms — Opium — Ranunculus — Savin 

 — St, JohWs Wort — Tobacco — Turpentine — Stramonium, 

 Mi'iierah and Chemical Poisons: — Acids — Alkalies — Alco- 

 hol — Arsenic — Brine — Corrosive Sublimate — Creasote — 

 Lead — Mercury — Strychnine — Tartar Emet ic. 



Cases of poisoning in the Iv^wer animals are usually owing 

 to accident, in forcing down excessive doses of dangerous 

 drugs as medicine ; or design, when an enemy seeks to re- 

 venge himself on the owner by poisoning his stock ; or to 

 animals consuming with their food some noxious plant or 

 other injurious agent. 



Often, especially in the second and third of these cases, it 

 IS not known really what poison has been taken. In these, 

 and, in fact, in nearly all cases of poisoning, it is safe prac- 

 tice to act at once, in accordance with the following rules : — 



1. Administer at once a full dose (one to three pints) of 

 some bland oil, as sweet, cottonseed, lard, or linseed oil. 



2. Follow the oil with repeated doses of lime water, or 

 powdered chalk, whiting, or powdered charcoal, mixed with 

 water or mucilage to the consistency of thin syrup. 



3. If great exhaustion and sinking follow, and signs of 

 drowsiness, without inflammation of the stomach, give 

 whisky or other spirits freely. 



4. Move the bowels by active injections (as No. 91.) 

 For purposes of treatment, poisons may be most con- 

 veniently divided into Vegetable Poisons and Mineral and 

 Chemical Poisons. 



