140 
POISONING  BY  CYANIDE  OF  POTASSIUM. 
I  was  lying  at  the  point  of  death  in  Mr.  Loffler's  drug  store,  he 
came  to  see  me,  and  brought  the  medicine  witli  him  which  had 
proved  fatal  to  his  child.  He  accused  Mr.  Loffler  of  having 
poisoned  the  child,  who  in  an  excitable  manner  offered  to  swallow 
the  contents  of  the  phial,  in  order,  as  he  said,  to  show  that  he 
made  no  mistake.  Unfortunately  he  was  permitted  to  drink 
nearly  a  tablespoon ful  of  the  mixture,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
afterwards  he  fell  down  dead.  The  attending  physicians  examined 
now  the  prescription  file  of  the  previous  day,  and  found  one 
over  my  signature,  which  read  :  Potass,  chlor.  9j,  syr.  gum 
acac.  aqua  anis,  aa  ^j. — M.  S. — One  teaspoonful  every  three 
hours.  They  next  examined  the  contents  of  a  glass  jar  which 
was  labelled  Potass.  Chlorat.,  which  was,  however,  empty,  and 
the  few  grains  of  a  dirty,  whitish  looking  salt  which  they 
scraped  from  the  bottom  of  the  jar,  bore  no  resemblance  to  the 
well-known  crystals  of  the  chlorate  of  potash.  It  was  further 
discovered  that  another  label  was  under  the  one  which  had  P.  C. 
written  on  it.  This  was  brought  to  view  ofter  the  top  label  had 
been  detached  by  carefully  wetting  the  paper,  when  the  words 
Kali  Cyanuret  became  distinctly  legible.  The  whole  mystery 
was  subsequently  fully  explained  by  Mrs.  Loffler,  who  stated 
that  her  husband  had  bought  the  drugs  at  second-hand  from  a 
German  druggist,  and  was  therefore  not  aware  of  the  fact  that 
the  jar  marked  Potass.  Chlor.  had  formerly  contained  the  cyan- 
ide, some  of  which  still  stuck  to  the  bottom  of  the  jar  ;  and  that 
on  the  previous  evening,  when  my  prescription  for  chlorate  of 
potassa  came  in,  it  required  considerable  scraping  of  the  jar  to 
make  up  the  full  amount  of  the  drug. 
It  is  impossible,  under  these  circumstances,  to  determine  the 
exact  quantity  of  the  cyanide  which  proved  fatal  to  the  child  and 
druggist,  but  its  deadly  effect  in  both  these  cases  was  fearfully 
rapid.  In  my  own  case  I  must  evidently  have  taken  considerably 
more  than  the  highest  medicinal  dose,  which  is  stated  to  be  the 
five-sixths  of  a  grain.  Mr.  Nunnley,  who  has  reported  a  case 
similar  to  my  own,  in  one  of  the  English  medical  journals,  con- 
jectured that  the  immediate  effects  of  poisonous  doses  of  the 
cyanide  of  potassium  act  on  the  notary  functions.  This  opinion 
seems  to  me  to  be  correct,  for  my  consciousness  remained  intact 
for  some  time  after  I  had  felt  the  stiffness  of  my  lower  jaw  and 
