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Abstract
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At 11 o'clock, on the night of the fifth of August, 1869, I was called to see Miss W. R., a large and well developed servant girl, æt. 18, doing housework in the family of Mr. O. of this city.
I was informed by him that the girl was in good health until about dusk of that evening, when, " all at once," she complained of intense pain in the head, soon followed by convulsions, and cramps in the stomach and bowels. When I arrived, she was having severe clonic spasms of the jaws, arms and legs ; and, when able to speak, complained bitterly of the pains, especially of those of the stomach, declaring that she was " burning up." The pulse was full, hard, and 120 per minute. Anything like con tinued pressure on the epigastric region caused great suffering. I readily concluded the case to be one of poisoning, by some agent of great virulence, which she, after some persuasion, admitted, but obstinately refused to say what it was, or where obtained. She coveted death ; and positively refused to swallow anything, until I threatened to use the stomach pump, which I made her believe was an engine of great power. I gave her the whites of six eggs, all that could be had in the house, followed by copious draughts of sweet milk, and, in a short time, by an emetic of ipecac and tartarized antimony, which acted promptly, causing the ejection of a large amount of ingesta, intermixed with a dark-brown fluid...
Language: en |