686 poisons : their effects and detection. [§ 874. 
mouth, partial paralysis, and, in many instances, with diarrhoea. The 
Triumph was now ordered to Gibraltar, the provisions were removed, 
and efforts were made to cleanse the vessel. On restowing the hold, 
every man so employed was salivated. The effects noted were not 
confined to the officers and ship’s company, for almost all the stock died 
from the fumes—mice, cats, a dog, and even a canary bird shared the 
same fate, though the food of the latter was kept in a bottle closely 
corked up. The vapour was very deleterious to those having any 
tendency to pulmonic affections. Three men, who had never complained 
before they were saturated with mercury, died of phthisis ; one, who 
had not had any pulmonic complaint, was left behind at Gibraltar, 
where his illness developed into a confirmed phthisis. Two died from 
gangrene of the cheeks and tongue. A woman, confined to bed with a 
fractured limb, lost two of her teeth ; and many exfoliations of the 
jaw took place. 
Accidents from the vapour of mercury, quite independently of its 
applications in the arts, have also occurred, some of them under curious 
circumstances. Such, for example, is the case mentioned in the footnote 
to p. 682. Witness, again, a case mentioned by Seidel, 1 in which a 
female, on the advice of an old woman, inhaled for some affection or 
other 2-5 grms. of mercury poured on red-hot coals, and died in ten 
days with all the symptoms of mercurial poisoning. 
The metal taken in bulk into the stomach has been considered non- 
poisonous, and probably, when perfectly pure, it is so. We have, 
however, the case of a girl who swallowed 4^ ozs. by weight of the 
liquid metal, for the purpose of procuring abortion: this it did not 
effect ; but, in a few days, she suffered from a trembling and shaking 
of the body and loss of muscular power. These symptoms continued for 
two months, but there was no salivation and no blue marks on the 
gums. This case is a rare one, and a pound or more has been taken 
without injury. 
§ 874. Absorption of Mercury by the Skin.— Mercury in a finely 
divided form, rubbed into the skin, is absorbed, and all the effects of 
mercurialism result. This method of administering mercury for medi¬ 
cinal purposes has long been in use, but, when the inunction is excessive, 
death may occur. Thus, Leiblinger records a case in which three persons 
were found dead in bed ; the day before they had rubbed into the body, 
for the purpose of curing the itch, a salve containing 270 grms. of 
mercury finely divided. 
It is difficult to say in what proportion workers in mercury, such as 
water-gilders, etc., suffer. According to Hirt, not only do 1-5 to 2-1 
per cent, of the workmen employed in smelting mercury ores suffer 
acutely, but as high a proportion as 8-7 per cent, are slightly affected. 
1 Maschka’s Handbuch, ii. 295. 
