A question has arisen whether this salt can be considered as a poison, capable of occasioning death? In general where a large dose has been administered, it is all rejected by the vomiting which it excites; we accordingly find in the works of _Morgagni_ and other pathologists, the history of various cases in proof of the innocence of this salt. _Hoffman_, however, relates the case of a woman who experienced very severe symptoms shortly after having taken tartar emetic, and that she ultimately died,[301] and there are other similar instances recorded in the works of _Foderé_ and _Orfila_. It also deserves notice, that tartarized antimony is very liable to produce deleterious effects, where, from the insensibility of the nervous system, the operation of vomiting cannot be excited, as in apoplexy, drunkenness, and in that state of coma, which follows the ingestion of narcotic vegetables. _M. Cloquet_ communicated to _Orfila_ a case highly illustrative of this fact, in which a person, labouring under apoplexy, received into his stomach more than forty grains of tartar emetic, without exciting either nausea or vomiting. On opening the body, independent of the morbid state of the brain, which must be regarded as the immediate cause of death, extensive organic lesions were discovered in the alimentary canal, which could alone be attributed to the action of the tartar emetic. This fact will suggest a very important precaution to the practitioner, who may be called upon to treat a person labouring under a state of the system which will prevent the act of vomiting.[302]. The symptoms produced by this salt will resemble those of a corrosive poison; and where vomiting is produced, it frequently happens that although the patient may be eventually saved, an irritability of stomach, so great as to cause the rejection of all aliments, will remain for a considerable period; and _Dr. Male_ states that in the only case of poisoning by this salt which he had ever seen, the person was affected with violent convulsions, which returned at intervals for several weeks after recovery from the immediate effects of the poison.[303] _M. Orfila_, after detailing several cases of poisoning by emetic tartar, concludes by saying that the general symptoms, upon such occasions, may be reduced to the following: a rough metallic taste; nausea; copious vomitings; frequent hiccup; cardialgia; burning heat in the epigastric region; pains of the stomach; abdominal colics; inflation; copious stools; syncope; small, contracted and accelerated pulse; skin cold, sometimes intensely hot; breathing difficult; vertigo, loss of sense, convulsive movements; very painful cramps in the legs; prostration of strength,—death. Sometimes to the above symptoms is joined a great difficulty of swallowing; deglutition may be suspended for some time. The vomiting and alvine evacuations do not always take place, the necessary consequence of which is an increase in the violence of the other symptoms.