ON POISONING BY CONCENTRATED ACIDS, ETC. 129 
ARTICLE XXX. — UPON POISONING BY CONCENTRATED 
ACIDS ; AND THE FIRST REMEDIES TO ADMINISTER. 
By A. Chevallier. 
My object in publishing an article on poisoning by concen- 
trated acids, is not to elicit discussion. I admire not this kind 
of contention, and have often shown evidences of this feeling. 
But, first, to draw the attention of men of science to opinions 
thrown out upon the subject of the remedial substances to be 
administered in case of accidents from concentrated acids, and 
to induce them to publish the observations they have collected 
in the course of their practice. Second, not to leave unin- 
formed, the persons who, as pharmaceutists, are called upon 
to administer the first remedies to individuals who either in- 
tentionally, or by accident, have been poisoned by such con- 
centrated acids as sulphuric, phosphoric, nitric, and hydro- 
chloric. Third, to establish the point that, in the different 
works which I have published, I have not been in error in 
pointing out the employment of alkalies, and especially mag- 
nesia, as an antidote to these acids.* 
To the present time, the greatest number of practitioners 
have agreed that the first assistance to be given for poisoning 
by acids, consists in the administration of alkalies, and parti- 
* An apothecary of Paris, M. Dupuy, who lives in a quarter where 
there are a great number of bleachers, has several times been called upon 
to render assistance in cases of poisoning by blue liquid. He has obtained 
constant success by employing carbonate of magnesia. He gives this 
salt in preference to magnesia, because the carbonate produces vomiting 
at the same time that it neutralizes the acids.* 
* We have been informed of a case which, from a similar cause, occurred in this 
city, where the individual had recourse to a profuse draught of chamber lie, used in 
the establishment, with the same result as above,— ammonia, in this case, was the neu- 
tralizing agent. — Ed. of Jim. Journ. Pharm. 
VOL. VII. — NO. II. 17 
