BARIUM. 
§ 945-] 
727 
nucleus, with constant haemorrhagic extravasations. Onsum seems to 
have held the theory that the baryta salts circulated in the blood, 
and then formed insoluble compounds, which were arrested in the 
lungs, causing minute emboli, just in the same way as if a finely 
divided solid were introduced directly into the circulation by the 
jugular vein. 
Onsum stands alone in this view. Cyon found no emboli in the 
lungs, and refers the toxic effect to a paralysing influence on the heart 
and voluntary muscles, and also on the spinal cord. Cyon, to settle 
the embolic theory, injected into the one jugular vein of a rabbit barium 
chloride, -and into the other sodic sulphate, but the small arteries and 
capillaries of the lungs remained clear. Bohm, operating on frogs, found 
a great similarity between the action of small doses of barium salts and 
that of certain organic poisons, as, for example, cicutoxin ; -012 to *02 
grm., subcutaneously injected into frogs, acted as a heart-poison. So also 
Blake 1 found the heart slowed, and concluded that barium chloride 
had a direct action on the cardiac muscle, and also a toxic influence on 
the nervous system. F. A. Falck, in experiments on rabbits, found a 
great reduction of temperature after poisoning with barium chloride 
(3° to 12-6°). 
§ 945. Effects of the Salts of Barium on Man. —There were about 
fifteen cases of poisoning by barium salts on record by the end of 1883 
—three of which were suicidal, but most of them were due to accident or 
mistake ; two accidental deaths are also recorded in the five years ending 
1916. In three cases, barium chloride was taken instead of Glauber’s 
salts ; in one, instead of Carlsbad salts ; in another, a mixture of barium 
nitrate and sulphur, instead of pure sulphur ; in a sixth case, a mixture 
of barium acetate and raspberry syrup, instead of sodic ethyl sulphate; 
in a seventh, a chemist dispensed a larger dose than was ordered by the 
prescription ; and in four cases barium carbonate had been mixed with 
flour, and this flour used in the making of pastry. Of the cases, 60 per 
cent, proved fatal. 
Fatal Dose. —The recorded cases of poisoning have not satisfactorily 
settled the question as to the least fatal dose of the barium salts : 6*5 
grins, (about 100 grains) of the chloride have destroyed the life of an 
adult woman in fifteen hours ; 14 grms. (J oz.) of the nitrate of baryta 
have killed a man in six and a half hours ; and the carbonate of baryta 
has destroyed a person in the relatively small dose of 3-8 grms. (60 
grains). On the other hand, certain Continental physicians have 
prescribed barium chloride in large medicinal doses; for example, 
Pirondi 2 and Lisfranc 3 have gradually raised the dose of barium 
1 Journ. of Anat. and Physiol., 2nd series, 1874. 
2 De la tumeur blanche de genou, 2nd ed., Paris, 1830. 
3 Gaz. Med. de Paris, 1835, No. 14. 
