Читать книгу Pharmacologia онлайн

196 страница из 211

It has been just stated that after a poison has found its way into the circulation, it expends its virulence upon some particular organs. In some cases this is much more striking than in others. The preparations of Baryta, and of Tartarized Antimony, attack the heart, and occasion death by syncope. Arsenic is less definite in its action, it influences both the brain and the heart, but with different degrees of force in different cases, so that it is often difficult to ascertain which of these organs is the first to fail in its functions. Hydro-cyanic Acid is absorbed, and destroys life by its action upon the nervous system, whose energies it would seem to extinguish without any ostensible injury to the respiration and circulation; for in all those animals which were killed by it in the experiments of Orfila, Brodie, and others, the heart was found acting regularly, and circulating dark-coloured blood; and in some cases, this phenomenon was visible for many minutes after the animal was in other respects apparently dead.