472 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[December 14, 1872. 
pure metals, is innocuous, but most of its convpounds are 
energetic poisons; of these arsenious acid, or common 
white arsenic, may be studied as the prototype, whether 
in a free state or in combination with alkalis or other 
substances. Arsenic occurs in two conditions, either in 
white enamel looking masses with a shining fracture, or 
in the state of a white powder. It is perfectly tasteless 
and inodorous, and this is one reason it is so often em¬ 
ployed by murderers, as it can be administered without 
exciting suspicion. It is very sparingly soluble in 
water ; cold water dissolves it in the proportion of from 
half a grain to a grain to the ounce; water at the boiling- 
point only a grain and a quarter to the ounce; but if 
the arsenic is boiled for an hour in water, it is dissolved 
to the extent of 11 grains to the ounce; and as three 
grains constitute a fatally poisonous dose, an ounce of 
this latter liquor might kill three adult persons. An 
Act of Parliament prohibits the sale of solid arsenic in 
quantities less than 101b., unless it is mixed with one- 
sixteenth of its weight of soot or one thirty-second part 
of it weight of indigo. If blue or black arsenic, therefore, 
should be administered to a victim, the matters vomited 
will be blue or black. Thi3 prohibition, however, does 
not produce an increased security against arsenical poi¬ 
soning, because by boiling and filtering a strong poi¬ 
sonous colourless solution can be obtained. Arsenic 
combines readily with potash and soda, and the arsenite 
thus produced is quite soluble and quite as poisonous as 
pure arsenic. Arsenic is also readily suspended in a 
mechanical condition, in mucilaginous and viscid fluids, 
such as gruel, arrow root, sago, cocoa, or even porter. 
Arsenic may justly be described as the very Proteus 
of poisons, so to speak, being capable of producing al¬ 
most every species of poisonous action, except pure cor¬ 
rosion, and of attacking almost every important organ of 
the body. Thus, on some occasions, it excites violent 
inflammation of the stomach and bowels, and so de¬ 
stroys life by this purely local action; on other occa¬ 
sions it leaves the stomach and bowels altogether unin¬ 
jured, and produces fatal sinking of the heart’s action, 
or death by syncope ; while in other instances, again, the 
patient, without evincing either pain or uneasiness, gra¬ 
dually sinks into a deep sleep, and dies comatose, leading 
to the belief that he has been poisoned with opium, or 
has died from apoplexy. Now, in the two latter class of 
cases, there are no symptoms or indications whereby 
the most highly-trained and experienced physician can, 
during life, detect, or even suspect arsenical poisoning. 
The poisonous energy of arsenic is equally fatal to ve¬ 
getable and animal life. Plants watered by an arsenical 
solution fade, wither and die, and thus the vegetation in 
the vicinity of furnaces employed for the smelting of 
arsenical ores displays a sickly, wan and withered ap¬ 
pearance. When animalcules are watched under the 
microscope, they are observed to die in the course of 
from ten to thirty minutes after the addition of a solution 
of arsenic to the water containing them. The poison is 
equally fatal to worms, insects, crustaceans, fish, reptiles, 
birds and mammals. In short, no animal, great or 
small, is capable of resisting its fatal energy as a poison. 
In arsenical poisoning cases occur which are acute 
and cases which are chronic; the difference arising en¬ 
tirely from the mode of administration. The acute 
cases are produced by a single large dose of the poison, 
the object being to kill the victim outright in the course 
of a few hours, or in a day or two at the outside. Most 
frequently the poison begins to act in from half an 
hour to an hour, locally, by producing violent inflamma¬ 
tion of the stomach and bowels, attended with very cha¬ 
racteristic symptoms, which do not resemble, when 
studied conjointly, the phenomena produced by any 
disease. The symptoms are those of what are termed 
irritant poisoning. The victim is suddenly seized with 
faintness, depression, nausea and sickness, accompanied 
with intense burning pain at the pit of the stomach, 
greatly aggravated by pressure; the pain then extends 
to the whole of the abdomen, and violent vomiting and 
purging ensue, the vomited matter being brown or 
turbid, and sometimes streaked with blood, but black or 
blue at first if arsenic mixed with soot or indigo has 
been administered. In some cases a white vomit has 
been observed when a large quantity of white arsenic has 
been administered. In cases of suspected poisoning the 
vomit should be carefully preserved for examination. 
The vomiting in arsenical poisoning is very violent and 
persistent and is rendered more intense by swallowing 
the smallest quantity of any substance or fluid, and, 
moreover, it is not followed by the slightest relief. The 
purging, too, is equally persistent and painful, and 
there is often a discharge of blood. The mouth is 
parched and there is intense thirst with a sensation of 
burning and constriction in the throat. The pulse is 
exceedingly feeble, frequent and irregular, often quite 
imperceptible, owing to the depressing power exercised 
by arsenic on the action of the heart; so that the con¬ 
dition of collapse is generally, but not always, induced ; 
the skin becoming cold, clammy, and livid. A case of 
arsenical poison may, therefore, at first sight, bear a 
strong resemblance to cholera, for which, however, it 
cannot be mistaken on a careful examination, even al¬ 
though the calves of the legs may be cramped. There 
is much jactitation and restlessness, and the countenance 
is generally collapsed from an early period and expres¬ 
sive of intense torture, anxiety or even despair, and the 
eyes are injected, red and sparkling. When this con¬ 
geries of symptoms has lasted for a few hours the brain 
and spinal cord often become affected, so that convulsive 
movements of the trunk and extremities begin to be 
manifested, and then delirium, followed by fatal stupor. 
But the intellectual faculties often remain clear to the 
last; death taking place calmly, though it may be pre¬ 
ceded by an attack of convulsions. In this category of 
cases in which a very large dose of the poison has 
generally been swallowed, death frequently' occurs at 
the end of twenty-four hours, and generally before the 
end of the third day, although some cases may linger a 
few days longer, and become subacute. Now these 
cases are examples of violent and fatal inflammation of 
the lining membrane of the stomach and intestines, of 
which all the traces, including ulceration, are detected 
by dissection, after death. When arsenic kills by its 
action on the heart, brain, and spinal chord, after being- 
absorbed or taken up into the blood by the minute 
blood vessels forming a dense net work on the lining- 
membrane of the stomach, the local effect of inflamma¬ 
tion on the stomach and bowels, just described, is either 
entirely absent or very feebly developed. In fact, life 
is extinguished so rapidly (within five or six hours) 
that inflammation has not time to become developed. 
When the poison acts on the brain, after absorption, 
it produces complete narcotism, with the symptoms of 
death by opium or apoplexy, namely, a deep sleep, with 
loss of consciousness and volition. Dr. Moreland, of 
Bombay, describes a fatal case of this description, in 
which the victim, a man, was suspected of having taken 
a large dose of opium. When the poison kills by its 
action on the heart, producing death by syncope, at¬ 
tended with all the symptoms of collapse and sinking, 
namely, a faint and almost perceptible pulse, a cold 
clammy skin and laborious breathing, the intellect may re¬ 
main clear, or, there may be some degree of stupor, 
and there may or may not be convulsions. When ar¬ 
senic kills by its action on the brain and spinal cord, or 
on the heart, death takes place rapidly; generally at 
some period between two and eight hours after the poi¬ 
son has been swallowed. In these cases, as I have 
already stated, there is generally a complete freedom from 
local inflammation of the stomach and bowels, and its 
attendant characteristic symptoms. The symptoms of 
chronic arsenical poisoning may be divided into primary 
and secondary. The primary are those developed by 
the local contact of the poison with the lining membrane 
