PREPARATIONS  OP  CONIUM  MACULATUM,  ETC. 
269 
with  a  little  water,  from  1J  to  2J  hours  after  breakfast.  In 
order  that  the  body  should  be  well  prepared  for  the  poison,  I 
took,  most  mornings,  on  getting  out  of  bed,  3j  of  bicarbonate  of 
potash  in  a  draught  of  water,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes  with  a 
small  proportion  of  tartaric  acid.  By  this  means  the  urine  was 
preserved  alkaline  until  late  in  the  afternoon.  The  other  morn- 
ings I  purposely  abstained  from  this  or  any  other  preparative 
measure. 
I  carefully  looked  for  effects,  but  found  none  after  any  of  the 
doses,  excepting  a  stimulant  action  from  the  larger  quantities  of 
spirit.  There  was  no  disorder,  nor  diminution  of  muscular 
power.  The  pupil,  definition  in  the  vision  of  near  and  distant 
objects,  the  pulse  and  all  the  functions  remained  in  their  usual 
state,  and  the  secretions  were  active  and  normal.  During  the 
whole  of  the  time  I  was  working  harder  and  longer  than  usual, 
and  sleeping  less  ;  nevertheless  there  was  no  sense  of  fatigue, 
neither  drowsiness  nor  tendency  to  inaction.  Every  other  day 
I  was  actively  engaged  with  body  and  mind,  and  usually  walked 
from  four  to  seven  miles.  On  the  alternate  day  I  remained 
quiet,  and  was  chiefly  employed  in  study.  Immediately  after 
taking  the  ^xij  of  tincture  on  the  3d  of  December,  I  sat  down 
and  wrote  my  letters,  and  then  entered  upon  some  microscopical 
investigations,  and  continued  them,  with  a  single  break  of  an  hour, 
for  eight  hours  consecutively.  On  this  and  other  similar  occa- 
sions I  retired  to  bed  without  the  feeling  of  mental  fatigue  which 
I  frequently  experienced  after  prolonged  microscopical  work. 
It  so  happened,  in  fact,  that  at  the  time  I  was  following  my  ex- 
periment upon  the  tincture  of  conium,  I  was  in  vigorous  health, 
and  this  was  in  no  way  affected  by  the  drug. 
The  other  subject  of  my  experiments  was  in  a  very  different 
condition.  She  was  a  pale,  delicate,  emaciated  woman,  an  I 
confined  to  bed  by  the  pain  and  constitutional  disturbance  at- 
tendant upon  the  formation  of  a  very  large  abcess  in  the  right 
loin.  Her  pulse  was  108  and  feeble,  and  she  was  restless  and 
unable  to  sleep.  The  abscess  was  opened  on  November  13tli, 
and  a  pint  of  pus  discharged.  The  same  night  I  ordered  as  an 
anodyne  f  3ij  of  the  tincture  above  described,  and  directed  the 
dose  to  be  increased  each  night,  provided,  as  in  my  own  case,  no 
