POISONING BY BY HYDROCYANIC ACID. 359 
of radical hydrocyanic acid is adequate to produce death in 
the human subject. 
2. That death may be caused by hydrocyanic acid with- 
out any odor of it being remarked in the breath, or in the 
first fluid withdrawn from the stomach, even although the 
odor be carefully sought for, and although the poison be 
present. 
3. The notion entertained by various writers in the Lon- 
don journals, on the occasion of the trial of Tawell, that it 
is an invariable circumstance, that a piercing cry ushers in 
the action of a poisonous dose of hydrocyanic acid, is evi- 
dently erroneous, and founded on limited experience. 
4. That the cold douche on the head is an energetic 
remedy, when other means available in so urgent an emer- 
gency are inefficacious. 
M. G. C. Mitscherlich, from his experiments on animals, 
gives the following facts and conclusions :— 1. That oil of 
cinnamon is a poison. Six drachms killed a moderate- 
sized dog in five hours ; and two drachms, in forty hours. 
One drachm induced illness of several days' duration. That 
it is a weaker poison than oil of mustard or savine, and 
stronger than oil of fennel, citron, turpentine, or copaiba 
balsam. 2. That oil of cinnamon is absorbed, is shown by 
the distinct odor of the oil in the abdominal cavity after 
death, and also, though to a smaller degree, in the blood. 
3. Given in large doses, it can be detected by its aromatic 
odor in the deep yellow scanty urine ; and its odor can be 
perceived somewhat less distinctly in the breath expired. 4. 
The oil of cinnamon produces somewhat similar changes of 
structure in the stomach and intestines as the oil before 
mentioned. In the mouth, effusion of blood and vesication 
of the mucus membrane, without pre-existing inflamma- 
tion. In one case there was a portion of the mucous mem- 
brane of the larger curvature of the stomach, one inch 
long and half an inch broad, which was of a gray color, 
