Several cases of poisoning with ammonia or its carbonate have occurred in the human subject. Plenck has noticed shortly a case which proved fatal in four minutes, and which was caused by a little bottleful of ammonia having been poured into the mouth of a man who had been bitten by a mad-dog.[471] The symptoms are not mentioned, but it is probable, from the rapidity of the poisoning, that a nervous affection must have been induced. More generally, however, the effects are simply irritant; and the seat of the irritation will vary with the mode in which the poison is given. If it is swallowed, the stomach and intestines will suffer; if it is imprudently inhaled in too great quantity, inflammation of the lining membrane of the nostrils and air-passages will ensue. Huxham has related a very interesting example of the former affection, as it occurred in a young man, who had acquired a strange habit of chewing the solid carbonate of the shops. He was seized with great hemorrhage from the nose, gums, and intestines; his teeth dropt out; wasting and hectic fever ensued; and, although he was at length prevailed on to abandon his pernicious habit, he died of extreme exhaustion, after lingering several months.[472] But the most frequent cases of poisoning with ammonia have arisen from its being inhaled, and thus exciting bronchial inflammation. An instructive instance of the kind has been related by M. Nysten. A medical man, liable to epilepsy, was found in a fit by his servant, who ignorantly tried to rouse him by holding assiduously to his nostrils a handkerchief dipped in ammonia. In this way about two drachms appear to have been consumed. On recovering his senses, the gentleman complained of burning pain from the mouth downwards to the stomach, great difficulty in swallowing, difficult breathing, hard cough, and copious expectoration, profuse mucous discharge from the nostrils, and excoriation of the tongue. The bronchitis increased steadily, and carried him off in the course of the third day, without convulsions or any mental disorder having supervened.[473] A case precisely similar is related in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. A lad, while convalescent from an attack of fever, was seized with epilepsy, for which his attendant applied ammonia under his nose “with such unwearied, but destructive benevolence, that suffocation had almost resulted. As it was, dyspnœa with severe pain of the throat and breast, immediately succeeded; and death took place forty-eight hours afterwards.”[474] A third instance has been recorded of analogous effects produced by the incautious use of ammonia as an antidote for prussic acid. The patient had all the symptoms of a violent bronchitis, accompanied with redness and scattered ulceration of the mouth and throat; but he recovered in thirteen days.[475] A fourth case, similar to the preceding, has been related by M. Souchard of Batignolles. A druggist, who inhaled while asleep the