138  POISONING  BY  CYANIDE  OF  POTASSIUM. 
found  their  way  into  the  daily  press,  but  a  full  and  reliable 
account  of  the  case  I  had,  for  certain  reasons,  withheld  from 
publishing  till  now. 
I  was  sent  for  in  the  evening  by  Mr.  G.  Eckert,  of  this  city, 
to  attend  his  child,  about  two  years  old,  for  whom  I  prescribed 
a  mixture  containing  two  scruples  of  chlorate  of  potash.  Early 
the  next  morning  I  was  hastily  summoned  to  see  the  child 
again,  whom  I  found  already  dead  on  my  arrival  at  the  house. 
The  nurse  informed  me  that  the  child,  on  the  previous  evening, 
could  not  be  induced  to  swallow  any  of  the  medicine  which  I 
had  prescribed,  but  that  about  half  an  hour  ago  the  child  took 
a  teaspoonful  of  it,  which  almost  instantly  caused  convulsions 
and  soon  after  death.  While  I  was  examining  the  corpse,  noticing 
the  white  froth  at  the  mouth,  the  very  pallid  countenance,  and 
coolness  of  the  surface,  the  nurse  suggested  that  the  medicine 
might  have  killed  the  child,  and  that  either  myself  or  the  apothe- 
cary had  made  a  fatal  mistake.  At  the  same  time  she  handed 
to  me  the  phial  containing  nearly  the  whole  of  a  two  ounce  mix- 
ture, which  I  repeatedly  carried  to  my  mouth,  in  order  to  de- 
termine by  the  taste  of  what  it  might  be  composed.  I  was  still 
holding  the  phial  in  my  hand  when  I  began  to  feel  a  slight 
giddiness  of  the  head  and  an  inclination  to  yawn,  to  sigh,  and 
to  heave.  Soon  after  I  experienced  some  difficulty  in  using  my 
lawer  jaw  in  the  act  of  speaking.  No  further  doubt  remained 
now  in  my  mind  that  I  had  tasted  some  deadly  poison.  I 
hurried  to  a  drug  store  at  the  corner  of  the  next  street,  which 
happened  to  be  the  same  one  where  the  medicine  had  been  pro- 
cured. On  my  way  thither,  which  took  me  but  a  few  minutes, 
all  the  symptoms  I  have  mentioned  increased,  and  when  I  reached 
the  apothecary's  my  gait  seemed  to  me  to  be  unsteady.  I  called 
for  a  strong  emetic  and  sat  down  on  a  chair.  Mr.  Loffler,  the 
druggist,  handed  to  me  in  a  teacup  a  solution  of  tartar  emetic 
and  ipecac,  which  I  had  some  difficulty  to  introduce  into  my 
mouth,  and  I  distinctly  recollect  that  I  neither  felt  the  usual 
taste  of  the  drugs  nor  had  any  sensation  of  the  act  of  swallow- 
ing. Mrs.  Loffler,  who  was  present  at  the  time,  told  me  after- 
wards that  I  fell  off  the  chair  before  I  had  finished  drinking  the 
emetic,  that  I  turned  blue  in  the  face,  and  breathed  slowly  and 
heavily.    It  was  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  I  came 
