Drugs that enslave : $b The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habitsKane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell)
Science
Drugs that enslave : $b The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habits
Kane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell)
Drug addiction
“CASE 2.—A woman, aged forty-six years, suffering from cardiac disease,
hemiplegia, and dementia, took fifteen grains of chloral, three times a
day, with calming effect. On the nineteenth day of the treatment numerous
purple-red spots appeared in the neighborhood of the left elbow; on the
next day many similar spots were seen on the shoulders and forearms, which
coalesced with the others. On the twenty-first day livid spots came on
the face; the left arm swelled and became hard. On its surface appeared a
multitude of minute points, of a much deeper color, which did not diminish
on pressure. Next day there were dark purple spots and discolorations;
some small, round, and circumscribed; others broad and irregularly shaped,
on the legs and abdomen, and in stripes on either side of the vertebral
column. Simultaneously with the petechia there was great prostration,
tendency to somnolence, weakness and excitability of the pulse, sore lips,
thickly coated tongue. On the twenty-third day the spots and discolored
patches had extended in every direction, and the previously bright-red
spots had assumed a deep-purple color. Finally, signs of lung congestion
appeared, with gradual failure of power, and death, after several fainting
fits, on the twenty-sixth day. At the autopsy numerous ecchymoses, of
every shape and size, were observed, more or less, on all parts of the
skin; the right lung was congested and œdematous; the heart dilated and
its valves thickened; over the right central hemisphere there was a large
arachnoid cyst, containing fluid blood.
“With the foregoing may be joined a case, related by Monkton, in which,
after four days’ administration of sixty grains of chloral daily, a rash
resembling slight variola, with hemorrhagic purpura, appeared, and death
occurred on the sixth day, by syncope.
“Finally, may be mentioned two patients of Pelman, in whom, after
treatment with chloral, there were larger and smaller petechia over the
whole skin; in one which proved fatal numerous petechia were found on the
mucous membrane of the larynx and under the endocardium, and a hæmatoma on
the right side in the skull, reaching to the base, the fluid contents of
which gave evidence of their recent origin.
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