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Abstract
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At 7.30 P. m., November 8,1873,1 was called to see L. M., a young woman, who at six o'clock the same evening had taken one and a half fluidounces of laudanum for the purpose of destroying her life. I found her unconscious, her extremities cold, muscles relaxed; pulse 60, and lull, but not strong; respiration snoring; face of a dusky hue; irides immobile, pupils about meh in diameter, and corneae insensible.
I had brought with me a couple of yards of india-rubber tubing of small diameter, and a syringe, and, after passing one end of the tube into the stomach, and starting the fluid in motion through it by the syriDge, I allowed the other end to fall into a basin by the bedside and thus act as a siphon.' In this way a couple of ounces of brownish fluid, smelling somewhat of laudanum, were dis charged, when the flow ceased, and could not be again started. While preparing to inject some warm water to wash out the stom ach, the tube was accidentally drawn out of the oesophagus, and I was unable to re-introduce it. She had taken no food during the day, and the brownish fluid was evidently mostly beer, of which she had drunk a glass a short time before taking the laudanum. I thought it better, however, to give her an emetic of mustard and salt, to get rid of whatever laudanum might remain; but it was with the greatest difficulty she was sufficiently aroused to be induced to swallow it. I gave her at the same time thirty drops of the tincture of belladonna, and repeated the latter every fifteen minutes until after ten o'clock. The emetic, not acting, was repeated in twenty minutes, and in twenty minutes thereafter was followed by a scruple of sulphate of zinc, and the fauces were tickled with a feather; all without result.
At 9.30 the pulse was somewhat more frequent, but weaker; the condition of the respiration and temperature of the surface remained about the same; and I now noticed for the first time that the optic axes were considerably divergent, the eyeballs being also rolled somewhat upward.
At 10.15, after rousing her to give her a dose of tincture of bella donna, there was an almost convulsive struggle of resistance, attended by violent excitement, and followed by sudden and com plete collapse. There was an entire cessation of respiration, the pulse was barely perceptible, the face pale, lips livid, pupils un changed, and eyes rolled up and outward to the extreme limits of their orbits...
Language: en |