POISON-OUS MILK. 71 



abdomen was retracted, and there was no pain ou pressure. 

 He complained of a burning constriction of the throat, 

 swallowed with difficulty, and said that his throat and 

 stomach felt as though they were on fire. 



" The mother lay perfectly still with eyelids closed, as if 

 in a deep sleep. Her pulse was rapid, her face had a livid 

 flush, her breathing was about 35 per minute, and labored. 

 The skin was cool, but neither abnormally moist nor 

 specially dry and harsh. She could not be aroused. In 

 fact, she was comatose. 



" The son rolled uneasily from one side of the bed to the 

 other. His breathing, also, was very labored. His eyelids 

 were closed, and the pupils were markedly dilated — did not 

 respond to light. He could not be aroused. In mother 

 and son, as well as in father and daughter, the abdomen 

 was retracted, and the throbbing of the abdominal aorta 

 M'as easily felt. 



" Now, to what were these symptoms due ? They were 

 certainly those of some poison. Dr. Mesic had brought 

 me some of the vomited matter, which I tested thoroughly 

 for mineral poisons, with negative results. The symptoms 

 certainly were not those of morphine, strychnine, digitalis, 

 or aconite. They did have some resemblance to those of 

 belladonna, but yet they were not the symptoms of bella- 

 donna. The pupils were not as widely dilated as they 

 would be in belladonna poisoning. There was in none of 

 these persons the active delirium of belladonna poisoning. 

 There was no picking at the clothing, no grasping of imag- 

 inary objects in the air, no hallucinations of vision. Surely 

 it could not be any vegetable alkaloid with which I was 

 familiar. 



" On the other hand, we know that nausea, vomiting, 

 headache, dilatation of the pupil, rapid pulse, heavy breath- 

 ing, constipation, and great prostration, with stupor, do 

 occur in cases of poisoning with certain ptomaines. There- 

 fore we began to look for conditions which would be favor- 

 able for the production of putrefactive alkaloids. These 

 conditions we were not long in finding. 



" The family, which consisted of the four persons sick, and 



