280 poisons : THEIR effects and detection. [§ 338 . 
symptoms to the death may take place in five minutes. F. Yas has 
drawn the smoke of tobacco from an immense pipe, and condensed the 
products ; he finds the well-washed tarry products without physiological 
action, but the soluble liquid affected the health of rabbits,—they lost 
weight, the number of the blood corpuscles was decreased, and the 
haemoglobin of the blood diminished. 1 
The larger animals, such as the horse, are affected similarly to the 
smaller domestic animals. A veterinary surgeon, Mr John Howard, of 
Woolwich, 2 has recorded a case in which a horse suffered from the most 
violent symptoms of nicotine-poisoning, after an application to his skin 
of a strong decoction of tobacco. The symptoms were trembling, 
particularly at the posterior part of the shoulders, as well as at the 
flanks, and both fore and hind extremities ; the superficial muscles were 
generally relaxed and felt flabby, and the pupils were widely dilated. 
There was also violent dyspnoea, the respirations being quick and short, 
pulse 32 per minute, and extremely feeble, fluttering, and indistinct. 
When made to walk, the animal appeared to have partly lost the use of 
his hind limbs, the posterior quarter rolling from side to side in an 
unsteady manner, the legs crossing each other, knuckling over, and 
appearing to be seriously threatened with paralysis. The anus was very 
prominent, the bowels extremely irritable, and tenesmus was present. 
He passed much flatus, and, at intervals of three or four minutes, small 
quantities of faeces in balls, partly in the liquid state, and coated with 
slimy mucus. There was a staring, giddy, intoxicated appearance about 
the head and eyes, the visible mucous membrane being of a dark red 
colour. A great tendency to collapse was evident, but by treatment with 
cold douches and exposure to the open air, the horse recovered. 
In a case occurring in 1863, in which six horses ate oats which had 
been kept in a granary with tobacco, the symptoms were mainly those 
of narcosis, and the animals died. 3 
§ 338. Effects on Man. —Poisoning by the pure alkaloid nicotine is 
so rare that, up to the present, a few cases only are on record. One of 
these, viz. the poisoning of M. Fougnies by Count Bocarme and his 
wife, is ever memorable in the history of toxicology, being the first in¬ 
stance in which a pure alkaloid had been criminally used. The detection 
of the poison exercised the attention of the celebrated chemist Stas. 
For the unabridged narrative of this interesting case the reader may 
consult Tardieu’s Etude medico-legale sur VEmpoisonnement. 
Bocarme actually studied chemistry in order to prepare the alkaloid 
himself, and, after having succeeded in enticing his victim to the chateau 
of Bitremont, administered the poison forcibly. It acted immediately, 
1 Archivf. exper. Pathol, u. Pharm., Bd. xxxiii. 
2 Veter. Journal , vol. iii. 
3 Annales Veterinaires, Bruxelles, 1868, 
