Note 431 — PART VI.—ALKALOIDS AND POISONOUS VEGETABLE PRINCIPLES SEPARATED FOR THE MOST PART BY ALCOHOLIC SOLVENTS. (continued 3)
Reading edition
In one of M. Richet’s experiments, a soluble strychnine salt injected into a dog subcutaneously acted in fourteen seconds.
[432] Quoted by Taylor from Med. Times and Gazette, July, 1861.
[433] A non-fatal dose may show its effects rapidly, e.g., there is a curious case of symptoms of poisoning caused by the last dose of a mixture which is recorded in Pharm. Journ., 1893, 799. A medical practitioner prescribed the following mixture:—
℞. Tr. strophanthi, ʒi.
Liq. strychni hydrochlorici, ʒiiss.
Sol. bismuthi et pepsin. (Richardson’s), ℥iss.
Sp. ammon. aromat., ...
Sp. chloroformi, aa. ℥iss.
Aquam ad, ℥vi.
ft. mist.
Shake the bottle.
Two teaspoonfuls when the attack threatens, and repeat in an hour if necessary.
Richardson’s liquor bismuth contains 1⁄20 grain of strychnine in each drachm. The mixture was alkaline; it contained 1·7 grain of strychnine and 38·25 minims of chloroform.
The patient, a woman, 54 years of age, had taken the previous doses with considerable relief; but ten minutes after the last dose, which she described as far more bitter than those she had taken previously, she was seized with the usual symptoms of strychnine poisoning, but recovered after five hours.
The explanation is pretty obvious; the mixture was alkaline, so that the strychnine was not in the form of a salt, but in the free state, and was therefore dissolved by the chloroform; the amount of strychnine taken in each dose wholly depended on whether or not the mixture was shaken violently and poured out into the teaspoon immediately after shaking; if allowed to repose the globules of chloroform saturated with strychnine would settle at the bottom, and there form a stratum rich in strychnine; so that the last dose would certainly contain an excess.
[434] White, Brit. Med. Journ., 1867.
[435] Folkes, Med. Times, 1869.