NITRO-BENZENE. 
§§ 249, 250.] 
199 
In a case related by Stevenson, 1 in which so small a quantity as 1-74 
grin, was taken in seven doses, spread over more than forty-eight hours, 
there were yet extremely alarming symptoms, and the patient seems to 
have had a narrow escape. On the other hand, a woman admitted into the 
General Hospital, Vienna, took 100 grms. (about 3J ozs.) and recovered ; 
on admission she was in a highly cyanotic condition, with small pulse, 
superficial respiration, and dribbling of urine, which contained nitro- 
benzol. Artificial respiration was practised, and camphor injections were 
administered. Under this treatment consciousness was restored, and the 
patient recovered. On the fourth day the urine resembled that of a case 
of cystitis ( Lancet , Jan. 16, 1894). The quantity of nitro-benzene which 
would be fatal, if breathed, is not known with any accuracy. 
§ 249. Pathological Appearances. —The more characteristic appear¬ 
ances seem to be, a dark brown or even black colour of the blood, which 
coagulates with difficulty (an appearance of the blood that has even been 
noticed during life), venous hypersemia of the brain and its membranes, 
and general venous engorgement. In the stomach, when the fluid has 
been swallowed, the mucous membrane is sometimes reddened diffusely, 
and occasionally shows ecchymoses of a punctiform character. 
§ 250. The essential action of nitro-benzene is of considerable 
physiological interest. The blood is certainly in some way changed, and 
gives the spectrum of acid hsematin. 2 Filehne has found that the blood 
loses, in a great degree, the power of carrying and imparting oxygen to 
the tissues, and its content of carbon dioxide is also increased. Thus, 
the normal amount of oxygen gas which the arterial blood of a hound 
will give up is 17 per cent. ; but in the case of a dog which had been 
poisoned with nitro-benzene, it sank to 1 per cent. During the dyspnoea 
from which the dog suffered, the carbon dioxide exhaled was greater 
than the normal amount, and the arterial blood (the natural content of 
1 This case is not uninteresting. Through a mistake in reading an extremely 
illegible prescription, M. S. S., set. 21, was supplied by a druggist with the following 
mixture :— 
R Benzole-Nit., 3^]'. 
01. Menth. pep., ^as. 
01. Olivse, 3 x. 
gutt. xxx., t.d.s. 
He took on sugar seven doses, each of 20 minims, equalling in all 23 min. (or by 
weight 27-1 grains=l-74 grm.) of nitro-benzene—viz. three doses on the fust day, 
three on the second, and one on the morning of the third day. The first two days 
he wa.s observed to be looking pale and ill, but went on with his work until the seventh 
dose, which he took on the third day at 9 a.m. About 2 p.m. (or six hours after 
taking the seventh dose), he fell down insensible, the body pale blue, and with all the 
symptoms already described in the text, and usually seen in nitro-benzene poisoning. 
With suitable treatment he recovered. The next morning, from 8 ounces of urine 
some nitro-benzene was extracted by shaking with chloroform.—Thos. Stevenson, 
M.D., in Guy's Hospital Reports, MS., vol. xxi., 1876. 
2 Filehne, W., “ Ueber die Giftwirkungen des Nitrobenzols,” Arch, fiir exper 
Pathol, u. Pharm., ix. 329, 
