OEGANIC POISONS AND DEUGS 115 



Absorption and Elimination. — Morphine is somewhat 

 slowly absorbed from the alimentary mucosa. "W^hen given 

 hypodermically, it is excreted into the stomach. In a recent 

 experimental case the writer found morphine by means of 

 Pellagri's test in the urine, and in the abomasum of a calf 

 which had received 30 grains of morphine under the skin 

 thirty hours before death. In the system morphine is 

 rapidly eliminated, being oxidised in the blood stream to 

 oxydimorphine, or at any rate modified chemically to a 

 substance closely allied to morphine. 



Symptoms. — In the horse and ox toxic doses of morphine 

 give rise to a period of excitement marked by restlessness, 

 bellowing, laboured breathing, full pulse, sweating and 

 dilatation of the pupil. Later, coma sets in with general 

 loss of sensibility, slow pulsation and breathing, and a sub- 

 normal temperature. There is arrest of the digestive 

 functions leading to nausea, indigestion, and tympany. 



The excitant effects of morphine on the horse are some- 

 times seen when it or opium is given in colic. The animal 

 moves in a circular direction (' circus mode of progression '), 

 an effect which used to be ascribed to the disease, but is in 

 reality due to the drug (P. Smith). The action on the ox 

 is similar, and the excitement often gives the impression 

 of madness or marked delirium. 



When poppy-heads are eaten the gastric symptoms become 

 more pronounced. 



Sheep display similar symptoms to cattle. 

 In the cat an hypnotic effect is rarely seen, the action 

 being that of motor excitement. 



In dogs, as in man, a toxic dose induces excitement and 

 reflex irritability, vomiting, contracted pupil, sometimes 

 convulsions. Thereafter follow coma, respiratory failure, 

 and death. 



Post-MoFtem Appearances are not characteristic, being 

 those of asphyxia. 



Treatment consists in removal of the cause by emesis, 

 the pump, and purgation. The depressant effects are 

 combated by caffein hypodermically, or in cerebral 



