A

DICTIONARY

OF

PRACTICAL MEDICINE:

COMPRISING

GENERAL PATHOLOGY,

THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OF DISEASES, MORBID STRUCTURES,
AND THE DISORDERS ESPECIALLY INCIDENTAL TO CLIMATES, TO THE SEX,
AND TO THE DIFFERENT EPOCHS OF LIFE;

WITH

NUMEROUS PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE MEDICINES RECOMMENDED,
A CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES ACCORDING TO PATHOLOGICAL PRIN-
CIPLES, A COPIOUS BIBLIOGRAPHY, WITH REFERENCES;

AND AN

Appendix of Approved Formulae:

THE WHOLE FORMING A LIBRARY OF PATHOLOGY AND PRACTICAL MEDICINE,
AND A DIGEST OF MEDICAL LITERATURE.

BY JAMES COPLAND, M. D.,

Consulting Physician to Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital; Senior Physician to the Royal Infirmary
for Diseases of Children; Member of the Royal College of Physicians, London; Member
of the Medical and Chirurgical Societies of London and Berlin, etc.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York

The skin was hot and dry, the pulse frequent, | paralysis, sometimes jaundice, &c. The irrifull, and hard. These symptoms gradually sub-tability of the stomach and cramps, or paralysided, and she recovered, although the pain insis, often continue long, and are attended by the head and epigastrium continued long. (Lond. Med. Gaz., xiv., p. 488.)

462. b. The morbid appearances produced by the salts of baryta have not been described as they occur in man. In the lower animals the mucous membrane of the stomach is usually found of a deep-red colour, unless death has taken place very rapidly, and in this case the alimentary canal is healthy. In all the animals which in Dr. CAMPBELL'S experiments were killed by the chloride applied to wounds, the brain and its membranes were much injected with blood; and in one of them the appearances were those of congestive apoplexy.

costiveness and dysuria or suppression of urine. 465. b. The sub-chloride of copper, oxychloride or Brunswick green, is sometimes formed when common salt has been used in a copper vessel, and in this way, as well as when employed as a pigment, it has given rise to accidental poisoning. A boy of three years swallowed about a scruple of this salt. Vomiting and coldness of the extremities followed, and continued until death. On dissection there was no change indicative of the action of an irritant poison, excepting slight congestion of the vessels of the brain.

466. c. Copper vessels are acted upon by articles of food or drink, especially if these articles contain saline substances or acids, or become acid while kept in these vessels. Thus wines which are more or less acid, substances sul-containing vinegar, or any other acid, soups or broths, especially if they contain vegetable matters, and are liable to become acid, and fatty substances, when kept only for a short time in copper utensils, are not infrequently productive of accidental poisoning. FALCONER and others have shown that metallic copper undergoes no change by contact with water unless air be present, when a hydrated carbonate, mixed with oxide, is formed. When an acid, or an oily or fatty matter, is in contact with the met. al, then this change more rapidly takes place, and the liquid or fat acquires a green hue. Hence no acid, oily, or saline liquid should be prepared or kept in copper vessels. Nor should fruits, pickles, or preserves be either kept or prepared in them. The quantity of the poison which may be formed in these circumstances may not be sufficient to produce fatal poisoning, but they may be quite enough to cause severe gastro-nervous or acro-sedative effects GMELIN was consulted respecting a violent disease which prevailed among a whole brotherhood of monks. The symptoms were obstinate and severe colic, retching and bilious vomiting, flatus, costiveness, burning pain in the pit of the stomach, under the sternum, in the region of the kidneys and extremities, with paralytic weakness of the arms. He found, on inquiry, that all the kitchen vessels-the pots, pans, milk pail, and butter dishes-were made of copper. Similar instances of culinary poisoning have been mentioned by CHRISTISON and other writers.

463. c. The Treatment of poisoning by the salts of baryta consists chiefly in the speedy administration of an alkaline or earthy sulphate, as the sulphate of soda or of magnesia. The poison is thus converted into the insoluble phate of baryta, which, if not altogether inert, is nearly so. But the alkaline sulphates are of but little service where the carbonate of baryta has been taken, unless in procuring the more rapid discharge of the poison by the bowels. In Dr. WILSON's case, just mentioned, the copious evacuations from the bowels consequent on the exhibition of the sulphates were evidently beneficial, and tended to the recovery of the patient. Unless the patient be seen early, any treatment will prove inefficacious. Where the carbonate of baryta has been taken, Mr. TAYLOR recommends recourse to emetics and the stomach-pump; or, as chemical antidotes, a mixture of vinegar with an alkaline sulphate. 464. C. COPPER, THE PREPARATIONS AND COMPOUNDS OF, have been considered above (§ 205, et seq.) with reference to the corrosive and acute action of these substances when administered in large doses or quantities. But in smaller quantities, or in repeated doses, they act locally as irritants of the gastro-intestinal villous surface, and constitutionally as sedatives or paralyzers of nervous and vital power; this latter effect resulting both from the influence primarily produced by them upon the nervous systems, and from their operation, through the medium of the circulation, upon the heart and nervous centres. The cupreous compounds are most likely to act in this way, and in a chronic form, when they contaminate articles of food, as remarked on many occasions. The salts of copper, which are the most frequently administered in large doses for the purposes of suicide 467. d. It is stated by Mr. TAYLOR, that the and murder, are the sulphate and subacetate, and use of the alloy called German silver, which is these act chiefly as corrosive acute poisons, as a sort of white brass, consisting of copper, zinc, stated above (§ 205). But these, as well as the and nickel, and containing about 50 per cent. of other compounds of this metal, may be so em- copper, may be productive of acro-sedative poi, ployed or administered as to produce the symp-soning where articles, as spoons, made of this toms most characteristic of acro-sedative poison- alloy, are allowed to remain in contact with inga. In most instances the gastric symp- acid, oily, fatty, or saline substances. A lady toms are similar to, but not so severe as, those in Paris, in 1838, after having had eels for din. attending the corrosive operation of the poison, ner, was awakened in the night by headache, while the nervous symptoms are of longer du- nausea, followed by vomiting and colic. Her ration. There are generally burning pain in physician ascertained that the eels had been the throat and stomach, anxiety, vomitings, cooked with butter and vinegar in an earthen, acute pains and great swelling of the abdomen, ware vessel; and he found the spoon, which but no diarrhoea; afterward painful and difficult was of German silver, presenting on different deglutition, with swelling of the throat and parts greenish spots. Chemical analysis showface, oppression of the pulse, salivation and ul-ed that a poisonous salt of copper had been thus ceration of the gums, spasms, convulsions, or produced; and the fact was farther proved by