266 
POISONING  BY  STRAMONIUM  SEEDS. 
A  CASE  OF  POISONING  BY  STRAMONIUM  SEEDS. 
By  Prof.  W.  Sherwood. 
About  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  August,  1854, 1  was  called 
in  great  haste  to  see  a  little  girl  three  years  old,  the  daughter  of 
a  German  citizen  residing  in  the  northwestern  part  of  Cincinnati. 
The  child  was  in  a  state  of  partial  stupor,  from  which  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  arouse  her  sufficiently  to  gain  her  attention.  She  had  at 
first  complained  of  dizziness,  then  of  headache,  and  when  I  first 
saw  her  the  pupils  were  greatly  dilated,  and  did  not  diminish  on 
the  approaching  of  a  candle.  She  was  unable  to  speak,  swallowed 
with  great  difficulty,  and  soon  lost  all  power  of  swallowing. 
There  was  constant  muscular  tremor  throughout  the  system,  and 
frequently  somewhat  obscure  convulsions. 
The  child,  when  first  attacked,  stated  that  she  had  eaten  some 
seeds,  and  a  broken  pod  from  the  stramonium,  or  Jamestown 
weed,  was  found  where  she  had  been  playing  in  the  yard.  The 
parents,  however,  not  aware  of  the  extremely  poisonous  property 
of  these  seeds,  did  not  send  for  medical  advice  until  the  alarm- 
ing symptoms  I  have  described  made  their  appearance. 
Ten  grains  of  sulphate  of  zinc  were  given  in  solution,  and 
this  failing  to  produce  einesis,  an  effort  was  made  to  repeat  it, 
but  the  child  could  not  swallow.  I  then  went  to  a  neighboring 
drug  store,  and  to  the  offices  of  two  or  three  physicians,  hoping 
to  obtain  a  stomach  pump,  but  failed.  I  then  procured  the 
longest  and  largest  catheter  I  could  find,  together  with  a  two 
ounce  glass  syringe,  and  returned  to  my  little  patient.  Having 
passed  the  catheter  into  the  stomach,  a  second  dose  of  sulphate 
of  zinc  was  thrown  in  by  means  of  the  syringe,  but  einesis  did 
not  follow.  I  now  ordered  finely  ground  mustard  to  be  mixed 
with  warm  water  to  the  consistency  of  milk,  and  injected  a 
syringe  full  of  this  into  the  stomach.  In  a  few  minutes  very 
copious  einesis  occurred,  bringing  away  nearly  a  dozen  green 
stramonium  seeds,  mixed  with  the  food  she  had  eaten  at  supper 
soon  after  swallowing  the  seeds. 
Her  stomach  was  washed  out  by  two  or  three  injection  of  warm 
water,  by  means  of  a  stomach  pump  which  had  been  brought  by 
a  messenger  who  had  been  dispatched  for  one,  but  only  two  or 
three  more  seeds  could  be  obtained.    A  syringe  full  of  strong 
