Acute poisoning by arsenic is brought about by taking rough-on-rats, Paris green, and sometimes arsenous acid. People who desire to commit suicide sometimes persuade the drug store to sell them arsenic for killing rats, but instead they take it themselves,. If they knew how much suffering the poison would bring them, they would probably seek an easier route out of the world.

Arsenic is used with other drugs for the cure of syphilis. Arsenic poisoning, to a greater or less extent, will be found following the treatment that is being given to all these people who have a positive test returning from the laboratory. The worst case of arsenic poisoning that I have seen in the last twenty years was a case of arsenical dermatitis. I do not see how a more severe poisoning could end otherwise than in death. This woman had a very narrow escape. She took her arsenic in the form of 606. If such severity can be developed in a few cases of using arsenic to correct cases, why should there not be many cases of skin troubles that will be treated for anything except arsenical poisoning. I insist that doctors are creating more disease than there would otherwise be if the materia medica had been fed to the fishes as Dr. Holmes suggested many years ago.

Symptoms

The chief symptoms are vomiting, with pain, cramps, colic, diarrhea with a great deal of bearing down pain. In those who recover, paralysis is liable to follow.

Treatment

In acute poisoning the treatment should be just about the same as it is for any poison taken into the stomach; namely, the stomach should be emptied as soon as possible, so as to get all out that has not been absorbed. This may be done by using an emetic. The best plan, however, would be to use a stomach-pump. Milk and the white of egg should be given very freely after the pump has done what it can in clearing out the stomach.

Where Fowler's solution, or any solution of arsenic, has been taken, dialyzed iron, in doses from six to eight drams, may be used as an antidote, causing the arsenic to form an insoluble compound, after which the stomach-pump should be used. Of course, the work should be done very rapidly. The iron should be swallowed as quickly as possible, and then the pump used.

Chronic poisoning by arsenic is brought on in many ways. Arsenic is used in the coloring of wall-paper, and the paperhangers are frequently poisoned by inhaling the arsenic which dusts off the wall-paper; besides, more or less of it is taken into the mouth from the hands, and from the mouth into the stomach. In chronic arsenic poisoning patients lose their hair, dropsy develops, and many die of heart disease and dropsical accumulation. Arsenical paralysis is developed in some cases.