POISONS AND THEIR ANTIDOTES, 



ARSENIC. 

 This drug is very frequently, and I might also add, indiscrimi- 

 nately, prescribed in the columns of certain papers for canine 

 ailments. 



Actions and uses. — ^Administered in excess it is an irritant poison. 

 Medicinally it is an alterative, tonic, and antiseptic. Externally, it 

 is useful in skin diseases, and for the removal of warts and 

 tumours. 



" Quantities of from three to ten grains, mixed with water, and 

 administered to dogs, caused in a few minutes nausea, vomiting, 

 short moaning, difficult breathing, a wiry rapid pulse of 120 or 

 upwards, and black evacuations made with considerable pain. 

 These symptoms were accompanied by a look of extreme anguish ; 

 blunted perception ; and death with convulsions followed in from 

 six to thirty hours." — Finlay Dun. 



Post-mortem Appearances. — Stomach (according to the quantity 

 of poison received) more or less inflamed, softened and thickened, 

 and piresenting extravasated blood-spots and erosions. In slow 

 poisoning the latter are most marked, the mucous membrane 

 ijeing also universally purple. Some weeks after death, bright 

 yellow spots, as observed in the human subject, have been found 

 inside the stomach. The lungs are usually congested. A 

 peculiarity of arsenic is its mummifying effects on the body after 

 death ; instead of putrefaction taking-place, the carcase becomes 

 dry and shrivelled. 



Antidotes. — Moist hydrated peroxide of iron ; magnesia. Certain 

 mechanical antidotes, in the absence of those agents just mentioned, 

 may be used with advantage, vi^, insoluble powders, as charcoal 

 and clay, together with oleaginous and mucilaginous matters! 

 Diuretics are subsequently -useful in removing the absorbed 

 poison from the system. • 

 ■ • Doses.— is to iV of a grain. 



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