On the physiological and therapeutical effects of colchicum autumnale / by Robert Lewins.

  • Lewins, Robert, approximately 1790-approximately 1847.
Date:
[1841]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the physiological and therapeutical effects of colchicum autumnale / by Robert Lewins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    points from those related above, as having taken place in the human subject, as will be seen from the perusal of the following cases. On the 15th December 1840, at half-past three p. m., I administered to a middle sized dog 70 minims of the Vinum Seminum Colchici without any immediate sensible effect. A short time afterwards it devoured a large quantity of meat very greedily, and continued gnawing bones for some time with great avidity. At 7 p- m., nearly four hours after he had swallowed the colchicum, he eat another large quantity of beef and lapped barley broth with great eagerness. He was visit¬ ed for the last time that night, at about 9 p. m., when he appeared in hisusual state of health. Next morning, 16th December, at half-past eight, sixteen hours after the colchicum had been given, he seemed weak, low, and very sick. He remained prostrate on some straw in a corner of the room, and could not be induced to move. During the night he had been most severely purged, and in every part of the room were egesta from the stomach, in some places mixed with a fluid of a dark-brown colour, in other places mixed with food, and near where he was lying, there were large watery evacuations intimately mixed with a fluid resembling blood. No attempts were made to vomit during the visits on this day, nor did he express by outward symptoms any indication of suffering acute pain. The eyes were hollow, and had a dull glazed appearance. On presenting food of the same kind that he devoured greedily the previous afternoon, he would not touch it. The prostration of strength, and insensibility to external impressions became greater and greater throughout the day. On vi¬ siting him next morning, 17th December, at a little after eight o’clock, he was quite dead, cold, and stiff. The food which had been placed before him yesterday morning had never been touched. The body, examined at half-past eleven, presented the following ap¬ pearances ; the intestines were found very much contracted and vas¬ cular. The internal surface of the stomach presented rather more ru¬ gae than natural, and was lined with mucus ; its cavity was nearly full of dark-brown coloured bile, and the pyloric orifice was contract¬ ed ; the duodenum was much injected and coated with mucus; the whole course of the jejunum and upper part of the ileum were of the most intense red colour. On the lower part of theileon were observed a number of dark streaks slightly raised, running m a longitudinal man¬ ner. The large intestines were likewise very vascular, although not so vivid as in the small intestines. In the ileon a large tapeworm, mea¬ suring considerably upwards of a foot, was found dead. There was not the slightest appearance of food or faecal matter in any part of the intestinal canal; a large quantity of bloody serosity mixed with thin mucus lined the parietes in almost their whole extent. The gall-bladder was full of dark brown bile, and the urinary bladder was distended with natural coloured urine. All the other organs were perfectly normal. In the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Lon¬ don for 1816, there are several experiments detailed by Sir Everard Home, for the purpose of ascertaining the effects produced on dogs by injecting the vinous infusion of colchicum into the veins. In his