Citation

Davidson AR. Buffalo medical and surgical journal 1882; 22(3): 117-118.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1882)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

36663985

PMCID

PMC9402077

Abstract

It is well known that the striking changes produced by arsenic are generally confined to the stomach and bowels. Taylor, Woodman, Tidy, and other authorities, assert that their intensity is usually in proportion to the largeness of the dose and the length of time the patient lived after taking the poison. My own experience is that it depends far more upon the con ditions existing at the time the poison is taken. If, for instance, a large dose is received during or after a full meal, or mingled with a considerable quantity of food, the chances are favorable to the patient, and if death occurs, after many hours, the char acteristic appearances are not nearly so well marked as in those cases in which a comparatively small quantity has been taken on an empty stomach, even if death has taken place in a few hours--in one case where death occurred in two hours, the stomach was found highly inflamed. In these cases the intensity of the inflammation is so great, extending as it does to the duodenum and sometimes through the whole length of the intestines and invariably present in the rectum, that a post mortem examination can not be made without awakening the suspicion of the presence of an irritant poison.

This condition, too, is persistent for a long time after death. Bodies exhumed six, twelve, and in one case nineteen months after death have shown the stomach well preserved and its mucous membrane retaining an inflammatory redness.


But, on the other hand, where the arsenic has been taken with food, it occasionally happens that death may occur from its effects, and neither the stomach nor intestines present an ab normal appearance. Evidence of poisoning upon post-mortem examination would be here entirely wanting. Such cases are, undoubtedly, very rare, but the possibility of their occurrence is not to be overlooked, as they teach the important fact in legal medicine that the non-existence of striking changes in the alimentary canal...

Language: en