50 VETEEINAEY TOXICOLOGY 



Symptoms. — Numerous well authenticated cases on record 

 in the literature enable a close picture of the symptoma- 

 tology of lead to be indicated. But by reason of the nervous 

 symptoms lead poisoning may easily be confounded with 

 that due to some vegetable poisons. Toxic, or numerous 

 small, doses first irritate and then paralyse both voluntary 

 and involuntary muscles through the motor nerves. 



Gastro-enteritis, ' colic, convulsions, coma, and death are 

 very general efl'ects of acute poisoning of cattle ^- " *. Note- 

 worthy are signs of intense abdominal pain, grinding of teeth, 

 nasal discharges, salivation, pallor of mucous membranes, 

 constipation, with passage of hard black dung, foetid breath, 

 ropy urine, blindness, muscular tremors, and coma. The 

 pulse is hard and thready, breathing acclerated, and tempera- 

 ture nearly normal or depressed, whilst the extremities are 

 cold. In cattle there is delirium, alternating with a semi- 

 comatose condition, in which the patient may assume an 

 unnatural position, and make no attempt to alter it. 



An interesting case of subacute poisoning with subsequent 

 recovery of foals was quoted by D. Pugh in 1897.^ The symp- 

 toms were listlessness, watery discharge from nose, eyes 

 bright and prominent, tongue red, offensive breath. Pulse 

 frequent, hard and weak, temperature 100"4° F. Eefused 

 food, fseces hard, urine highly coloured and ropy. Under 

 usual treatment recoveries were made in from seven to 

 twenty-one days. The cause was the scaling off of flakes 

 of paint from a bucket. 



The onset of symptoms may be slow — up to forty-eight 

 hours — but is generally unknown, and the period of illness 

 may be protracted, as, for instance, over nine days in a 

 case communicated by Ains worth Wilson, of which the 

 subject was a calf. 



Chronic Poisoning. — The blue line on the gums only 

 appears in chronic poisoning, which is a rarer event in 

 practice than the acute. In chronic poisoning, so common 

 formerly among workers in lead, are to be noted the general 

 digestive derangements, colic, constipation alternating with 

 diarrhoea, and thirst ; the nervous symptoms of paralysis, 



