day she had a fit which lasted four hours, from which she recovered in my presence, as if awaking from a sound sleep, and declared she felt perfectly well, her only complaint being a violent itching of the skin over the whole body. The convulsions returned in the evening. On the 11th day she had headache, itchiness of the skin, and burning sensation in the throat; the convulsions returned with violence for an hour and a half, when she again awoke free from complaint, excepting a violent itching of the nose, and a numbness in three of the fingers on the right hand. On the 12th and following days the convulsions still returned during sleep, but gradually became milder, and at length amounted only to irregular twitchings of the tendons in another week these had left her, and her strength a good deal returned, but she continued to suffer from occasional flatulence, oppression of the stomach, and difficulty of breathing." I have endeavoured to abridge this case, but it is so full of instruction, in the successive changes in its symptoms, representing so well, so many distinct morbid conditions, that it can scarcely be studied too much.

The following case, given by Dr. CHRISTISON, in his work on Poisons, extends the picture of the characteristic features of arsenic. "On two successive evenings, immediately after taking some gruel, Mr. Blandy was attacked with pricking and burning of the tongue, throat, stomach and bowels, and with vomiting and purging. Five days after, when the symptoms were fully formed, he had inflamed pimples round his lips, and a sense of burning in the mouth; the nostrils were similarly affected; the eyes were blood-shot, and affected with burning pain; the tongue was swollen, the throat red and excoriated, and in both there was tormenting sense of burning; he had likewise, swelling, with pricking and burning pain of the body; excoriations and ulcers; vomiting and bloody diarrhoea; a low tremulous pulse; laborious respiration; and great difficulty in speaking and swallowing. In this state he lingered several days, and died, nine days after the first suspected basin of gruel was taken."

The next case is from Mr. BRAITHWAITE'S Retrospect for 1852. "Dr. MACLAGAN was requested to see Margaret Davidson, aged 35, on the 4th of November, 1851, she having at three o'clock p.m., taken a dessert spoonful of powdered arsenic, in mistake for a saline effervescing powder. No effects were produced for half an hour, she was then sick, at seven o'clock she presented all the usual symptoms. Magnesia was administered, which was generally vomited as soon as swallowed. November 5.-Has vomited all night and still does so; has had diarrhoea; suppression of urine; she lies in a drowsy, torpid condition, eyes sunk, face blue, and, like the extremities, cold and clammy. She presents the most perfect resemblance to a case of Asiatic cholera in the stage of collapse. From this state she slowly rallied, and on the 12th had extensive bronchitis over the whole of both lungs, from which she ultimately recovered."

With one more case the picture will be more complete. It is from TAYLOR'S Medical Jurisprudence.

"A young woman procured a lump of arsenic. She began by biting it, and then broke it up into coarse fragments, put them into a glass of water, and swallowed them. This was in the morning, and she went the whole day without uneasiness. In the evening there were no febrile symptoms, at eight o'clock she suffered from pain in the abdomen; at eleven she appeared to be more calm than ever, and had a strong desire to sleep; at three in the morning she sat up in her bed, complained a little of her stomach, and then died without the least appearance of suffering.

The quantities of the poison taken in these cases was excessively large; three or four grains being, in many cases, sufficient to cause death.

ATROPA BELLADONNA.

This also is a deadly poison. It has been extensively employed as a remedy for neuralgic affections, such as tic-douloureux; for epilepsy, and mania; for hydrophobia; for cancerous affections; by HAHNEMANN it has been recommended both as a remedy for, and a preservative from scarlet fever, and also in some inflammatory diseases, as of the throat, eyes, brain, &c. The organs upon which it primarily acts are the brain, and nervous system; the eyes; the throat; and the skin; as is apparent from the following cases of poisoning.

In the London Medical and Physical Journal, vol. 57, are two cases by Mr. SMITH, of Forres, N.B.

"Nov. 5, 1827.- At five p.m. I was called to see two of Mr. M's children, both boys, the one four, the other two years of age. They had eaten the berries of the Atropa Belladonna from a bush in the garden. It appears to have been between one and two o'clock, for soon after two the elder boy went to school where the symptoms made their appearance. When taken up to his lessons he did not speak, but laughed immoderately, and grasped at imaginary objects; he had previously complained of pain in his head. He was now sent home, where the laughing continued, and he was as talkative as he had before been silent, but he was altogether incoherent; added to this, he was in constant motion, running round and round the room. I found him laughing and talking alternately; he was kept on the knee, but the extremities were in violent and almost constant action; the eyes fixed, and the pupils fully dilated, and insensible to the light of a candle. The same symptoms manifested themselves in the younger boy, and were now fully as violent. Emetics and castor oil were adminstered. Notwithstanding this treatment the symptoms became worse. The muscular movements

stronger and incessant, the breathing noisy and with a croupy sound, and occasional cough; their faces were swollen and red; incoherent talking continuing; the skin became cold; pulse, barely perceptible in the beginning, now not felt at the wrist; there was lock-jaw. They were put into warm baths, and rubbed with flour of mustard. They gradually became warm and the pulse more distinct. This state of collapse returned on the following day more than once, and the same means were used. On the 7th they began to distinguish objects, (they had been quite blind,) and to speak and act rationally; pupils were still much dilated, and eyes red; the younger child has had a rash, which disappeared on the second day. They were freely purged, which brought away the skins of the berries. From this time they continue to mend. The noisy, croupy cough continued longest; and when the elder boy has a cold, the cough is still, (at a distance of six years,) of the same nature. A third boy, who had eaten the berries with them, was in the hands of another practitioner, with a like result."

The following case is from the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 31, 1828.

"A gentleman who had been accustomed to take occasionally purgative mixture containing 46 grains of jalap, sent to his apothecary, instead of his physician's French recipe, a translation of it by himself in Latin, in which he had used the word belladonna as the proper equivalent for the French name of jalap, belle-de-nuit. The mixture was faithfully prepared according to the formula, and taken by the patient about six in the morning. The first effect was most violent headache, commencing about an hour afterwards, affecting chiefly the orbits, and accompanied ere long with excessive redness of the eyes, face, and subsequently of the whole body. In a few minutes the entire skin presented a uniform redness, exactly like that of scarlatina. The patient was also affected at the same time with intense redness of the throat, and great heat, which seemed to spread throughout the whole alimentary canal; he had also extremely painful irritation and suppression of the secretion of the kidneys. Twenty leeches were applied, and he experienced much relief in the course of a few hours. He passed a quiet night, and next morning complained only of a general feeling of discomfort. M. JOLLY, the relater of this case, states that he has repeatedly seen the powder and extract of belladonna cause a similar scarlet efflorescence."-Nouvelle Bibliothêque Medicale, Juillet, 1828.

In the Medicinishehe Jahrbücher des k. k. Oesterreichischen Staates, 1832, some cases are related, which add the symptoms of hydrophobia to the picture drawn in the preceding histories.

66 'A man, accompanied by his son, aged nine years, walking one afternoon in the woods, and seeing the branches of belladonna bearing black and brilliant fruit, resembling wild cherries, gathered some for his son, who ate them freely on account of their sweetish taste, he also ate ten berries himself, and carried home a large

quantity for his other children. Another son, not quite five years old, ate a great number; two elder daughters ate less. All went to bed afterwards, apparently well. All were taken ill; in the two boys the symptoms of poisoning appeared in all their force; restlessness and delirium, attempts to escape, so that they were constantly obliged to be forcibly confined to their beds; continual motions of the hands and fingers, and desire to lay hold of the coverings; acute delirium, but the wanderings only on lively subjects; actual vision almost gone, but at the same time both the boys fancied they beheld a crowd of objects; extreme dilatation and insensibility of the pupils; the eyeballs alternately fixed and rolling; spasmodic actions of the muscles of the face, grinding of the teeth, yawning; voice hoarse and weak; slight swelling of the left side of the throat, and burning sensation in the oesophagus, (in the elder of the two boys); decided aversion to all sorts of liquids in both, and spasmodic attacks whenever they were forced to swallow any thing. The symptoms presented, as will be seen, some analogy to mania, (delirium without fever,) for the vascular system was neither locally nor generally excited, and the respiration was not sensibly disturbed."

The provings which HAHNEMANN has given us of Belladonna contain fourteen hundred and forty symptoms. Its continued daily use in homoeopathic practice testifies to its admirable powers as a remedy.

CARBONATE OF AMMONIA.

This salt, (sal-volatile,) is daily had recourse to as a stimulant, and antispasmodic, either as applied to the nostrils, or taken internally, diluted with water. Its immediate, temporary effect is relied upon for these purposes; when taken in excess it acts as a very powerful poison; several cases of death caused by it are on record, one, reported by Dr. CHRISTISON, "where a strong dose of the solution killed a man in four minutes." When taken in smaller quantities and repeatedly, it has a penetrating action upon the constitution, very different from that of Aconite, Arsenic, or Belladonna, but equally characteristic. This action points it out as the most valuable remedy in similar cases of disease; for example, in that bad form of scarlet fever, where the rash appears only partially, or soon recedes, the throat is ulcerated, and the strength rapidly fails; a form which is commonly fatal, and for which Belladonna is not at all adapted. I have seen Carbonate of Ammonia apparently save life under such alarming circumstances.

HAHNEMANN tells us that this drug was proved by himself, and by Doctors HARTLAUB; GROSS; STAPF; TRINKS; and SCHRETER. The following case, from an old author, HUXHAM, gives, in few words, a very striking picture of the diseased condition which is

characteristic of this poison, and to which it corresponds as a remedy.

"I had lately under my care a gentleman of fortune and family, who so habituated himself to the use of vast quantities of the volatile salts that ladies commonly smell to, that at length he would eat them, in a very astonishing manner, as other people eat sugared carraway seeds;-a Spuvpayia with a vengeance!-The consequence soon was that he brought on a hectic fever, vast hæmorrhages from the intestines, nose, and gums, every one of his teeth dropt out, and he could eat nothing solid; he wasted vastly in his flesh, and his muscles became as soft and flabby as those of a newborn infant; and broke out all over his body in pustules, which itched most intolerably, so that he scratched himself continually, and tore his skin with his nails in a very shocking manner; the secretion of the kidneys was always excessively high coloured, turbid, and very fetid. He was at last, with great difficulty, persuaded to leave this pernicious custom, but he had so effectually ruined his constitution that, though he rubbed on in a very miserable manner for several months, he died tabid, and in the highest degree of a marasmus.

I commenced with the remark that if drugs are to be used as remedies for disease, some means must be adopted to discover their healing powers. The observation of the effects of these drugs in health, is the best method for this purpose, hitherto made known.

The pictures of these effects given in the latter pages have no pretensions to be perfect; they are merely sketches,-offered as illustrations. Among the omissions are the moral symptoms, these forming a subject too extensive to be entered upon in this Essay. The details given are sufficient to explain what kind of materials are required; how they are to be obtained; and the valuable use which may be made of them, in the treatment of disease according to the principle similia similibus curantur.

*Huxham's Works, p. 308.

Rugby, June 7th, 1854.

Edward Thomas, Printer, 3, Bridge Street Row, Chester.