Arsenic : its physiological and therapeutic effects / by James Begbie.

  • Begbie, James, 1798-1869.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Arsenic : its physiological and therapeutic effects / by James Begbie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    arsenic acts directly through the blood; that it is absorbed into and circulated with that fluid ; and that it is found in the urine, as well as in the blood, of those who have taken it, and discovered in the viscera of those who have perished under its destructive influence. The liquor arsenicalis of the pharmacopoeia is the preparation I have chiefly employed for securing the remedial effects of arsenic; occasionally it has been prescribed in the solid state, in the form of pill; and not unfrequently in combination with iodine and mercury. The arsenious acid, in the dose of one-fortieth to one-twentieth of a grain, mixed with bread crumb, is a convenient form of administra¬ tion, and appears to be most suitable in affections of the bowels, and in uterine complaints. The curative properties of arsenic may be obtained, in some in¬ stances, before its physiological effects present themselves; but, in order to secure its virtues as an alterative in the large class of chronic diseases wdiich yield to its influence, it will be necessary to push the medicine to the full development of the phenomena which first indi¬ cate its peculiar action on the system. Arsenic, as a remedy, is too often suspended, or altogether abandoned, at the very moment when its curative powers are coming into play. The earliest manifesta¬ tion of its physiological action is looked upon as its poisonous opera¬ tion ; the patient declares that the medicine has disagreed with him; forthwith the attendant shares his fears; the prescription is changed; and another case is added to the many in which arsenic is said to have failed after a fair trial of its efficacy. The result, I apprehend, would have been different under a cautious and judicious continuance of the drug—securing its alterative effects on the blood by diminishing doses, or by longer intervals of administration, or by suspending it only for a little, to resume it again when the symptoms which awakened suspicion or alarm have disappeared. Arsenic, when given continuously in moderate doses—say five drops of the liquor arsenicalis, diluted largely with water, twice or thrice a-day—will, sooner or later, generally within eight or ten days, produce increase of heat and dryness of skin, together with acceleration of pulse, followed by a sense of heat and itchiness of the eyelids, to which succeed swelling and tenderness ; the conjunc¬ tiva becomes inflamed, the eye sensitive to light, and the orbit surrounded by a dark discolouration. The tongue at this time will be found finely coated with a white silvery film, resembling that pro¬ duced by touching its surface with a weak solution of the lunar caustic—a phenomenon which, I believe, I first noticed and described in the paper already referred to. The throat becomes dry and sore, the gums swollen and tender; and, if the remedy is still further per¬ sisted in, salivation ensues. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, nervous depression, faintness, and tremor, are added to the catalogue of ills; butthe~judicious practitioner will suspend the drug long before these symptoms show themselves ; indeed, the earlier manifestation