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THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [January 27 ,1872. 
ternal application in tlie treatment of various skin affec¬ 
tions. 
Opium eaters in India are occasionally known to be¬ 
take themselves to arsenic in lieu of their favourite drug, 
and it is curious that they generally suffer but little in 
accustoming their systems to the use of the new drug, 
and to the want of the old one. 
The cases of poisoning by arsenic, which become the 
subject of investigation in India, appear to be compara¬ 
tively much fewer in number than those occurring in 
this country. During the fifteen years between 1855 
and 1870, 211 cases came before the authorities in Cal¬ 
cutta, in which white arsenic had been used for homi¬ 
cidal purposes. This is equivalent to an average of 
fourteen cases per annum. In England the average 
number of deaths from arsenic has been as high as ninety 
per annum, and at the present time it is somewhere 
about sixteen. It is highly probable, however, that this 
low average of arsenical poisoning in India by no means 
represents its real importance as a homicidal agent. 
When a native employs arsenic as a poison he usually 
gives his victim a quantity which would suffice to kill a 
■dozen people, and it frequently results from this that 
excessive vomiting immediately occurs, and the poison is 
thus eliminated before it has time to be absorbed into 
the system. In the majority of discovered cases of 
arsenical poisoning in India the cri min als state that 
their victims died of cholera. The great collapse which 
speedily supervenes after a large quantity of the poison 
has been taken, sufficiently resembles that of cholera to 
render the mistake in cholera seasons by no means an 
improbable one, when suspicion has not been aroused. 
Of course, a chemical examination of the vomited matters 
would set the question at rest by the actual discovery of 
the poison. 
Yellow Sulphide. —The yellow sulphide, or orpiment, 
is but very seldom made use of as a poison, and during 
the last fifteen years there have been only fifteen such 
cases recorded in the wffiole of Bengal. This is, no 
doubt, mainly due to its colour, which would readily 
give rise to suspicion when mixed with articles of food. 
Orpiment is the preparation of arsenic which is most 
frequently used as a depilatory and as a pigment in 
India. All the bright yellow colour which Hindoos 
apply to their foreheads, and which they use in painting 
their idols, is prepared from the yellow sulphide. It is 
also extensively used in making paper, which, thus pre¬ 
pared, is secured against the attacks of white ants and 
all other insects. 
Red Sulphide. —The red sulphide, or realgar,, is also 
used as a depilatory, but poisoning by this substance is 
extremely rare. 
Aconite .—Aconite is the best known, and the most 
frequently employed, of all the stronger vegetable poisons 
of India. The habitat of the plant is the temperate 
and subalpine ranges in the Himalayas, at an elevation 
■of from 10 to 14,000 feet. The dried root of A.ferox, 
in common with those of other Himalayan species (viz. 
A. Napellus , A. palmatum , and A. luridum ), constitutes 
the drug well known in the bazaars of Upper India, 
under the Hindustani name of Bish or Bikh. It occurs, 
as you know, in the form of dark tuberous roots, more 
or less conical, from 2 to 3 inches in length, and from 
half an inch to one inch in thickness at the upper end. 
&ome specimens are white and spongy in texture, and 
are more powerful, the proportion of aconitia being as 
five to three. These roots are brittle, and break with a 
resinous fracture, and are readily reduced to a coarse 
powder. In this state they are destitute of smell, 
slightly bitter in taste, and produce the peculiar and 
well-known sense of numbness in the tongue. These 
roots are sold in every bazaar in India, and may be pro¬ 
cured at about 4s. per lb. In medicine, the Bish is 
chiefly employed in India in the treatment of leprosy, 
fever, cholera, and rheumatism. Its “ general utility ,” 
however, may be gathered by a description of it once 
given by a native doctor. He said it was “useful to 
sportsmen for destroying elephants and tigers; useful to 
the rich for putting troublesome relations out of the way; 
and useful to jealous husbands for the purpose of destroy¬ 
ing faithless wives.” 
There is, perhaps, no other poison so much used as 
aconite for destroying wild animals. The apparatus em¬ 
ployed consists of a short arrow, the head of which is 
plentifully smeared with the powdered root which is 
made into a paste with a tenacious juice. This arrow is 
inserted into the barrel of a musket, the head projecting 
externally, and the gun is discharged in the ordinary 
way. So fatal are its effects, that even a scratch from 
an arrow so poisoned is followed often by almost instant 
death. It is this poison that is used by all tiger-killers 
for poisoning their arrows. 
Rose. —It is not easy to ascertain what amount of the 
root is necessary to destroy life; but there are cases on 
record where 15 grains were sufficient to produce a fatal 
result. But even a much less quantity than this would 
seem under certain circumstances to be sufficient to cause 
death. In one authenticated case which occurred at 
Darjeeling, in the Himalayas, a native, while crossing 
the hot valleys, allowed the aconite root—a quantity of 
which he was carrying across his shoulders in an open 
cane basket—to rub against his moist naked body. A 
sufficient quantity of the poison was in this way absorbed 
to cause death. 
Period. —The period at which death takes place varies 
of course with the amount administered, but a poisonous 
dose usually proves fatal in a few hours. 
Aconite belongs to that class of poisons which is termed 
“ narcotico-acrid,” and displays in its action the con¬ 
joint results of the two other classes termed “ irritants” 
and “narcotics.” The “acridity” is manifested by ob¬ 
stinate retching and vomiting, constant spitting of saliva, 
and a burning sensation in the pit of the stomach. The 
depressant influence of the poison renders the pulse slow, 
small, weak and intermittent, and gives rise to hurried 
laborious breathing, and a sense of emptiness in the re¬ 
gion of the heart. The narcotic action of aconite is illus¬ 
trated by the immediate impairment of sensibility, cha¬ 
racterized by tingling and numbness of the lips and 
tongue, almost coincidently with the chewing of the 
root, at first acting locally upon the peripheral distribu¬ 
tion of the nerves, but it subsequently affects the central 
ganglia (or nervous centres), as proved by the tingling 
and numbness becoming universal, and by the inability 
of the patient to stand upon his legs. The great pecu¬ 
liarity of this poison is that it leaves the mental faculties 
perfectly clear, even during the height of the symptoms. 
The patient may be quite unable to walk or stand, 
owing to the paralysis of the lower extremities, whilst 
he may be able to move his arms about without any 
difficulty, and to steady them in any position at will. 
The disordered sensibility comes on after chewing the 
root, and may continue more or less till the other 
symptoms of poisoning subside, while the patient re¬ 
mains perfectly rational throughout. The pupils dilate 
up to a certain degree only, and never reach that ex¬ 
treme dilatation which is characteristic of the Solanaceous 
group. 
Test. —The chief test relied on for the detection of 
aconite is the physiological one; that is to say, the ex¬ 
pert applies to his own tongue or lips a portion of the 
fluid suspected to contain aconite. If this poison be pre¬ 
sent, the peculiar numbness and insensibility will gene¬ 
rally be experienced. 
Treatment. —The treatment of aconite-poisoning con¬ 
sists chiefly in the use of emetics and the stomach pump; 
and although various substances have from time to time 
been vaunted as effectual antidotes for this poison, it is a 
lamentable fact that as yet none of them are deserving 
of the name. 
[To be continued .) 
