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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    watery stools, and likewise a large quantity of a fluid resembling dark venous blood. A very considerable quantity of inky-coloured serous fluid bad also been vomited. The poor animal was seated upon the hinder extremities, but, upon being roused, stood on its legs. Pulse 102, irregular and weaker; inspirations 42 in the minute. At half¬ past nine p. m. there was no very decided change since last report. On being roused, he had a very unsteady gait. The eyes were dull and glazed, and he had vomited large patches of a frothy fluid. 20th December, at half-past eight a. m., had passed throughout the night more stools resembling dark blood, and a quantity of the same fluid seems to have been ejected from the stomach. He had not touched food since the operation. Some frothy sputa were found in a plate which had been placed beside him, containing soup and meat. Could not be roused so as to stand up. Pulse weaker ; 120 in the minute. At half-past four p. m. appeared more prostrated than at last report. The pulse was 150 in the minute, weak, thready, but not intermitting. Inspirations 32 in the minute. Remained much in the same state until seven o’clock, when he expired. The body was examined at seven a. m. on the following day, twelve hours after death. The intestines were very much contracted. The inner surface of the stomach presented many more rugse than natural, and was highly vascular. The whole course of the intestinal canal was of a deep-red colour, most intensely injected, and these appearances were better marked in the lower portion of the tube. In the colon were the same longitudinal striae mentioned in the other case ; and the whole tract of the canal was lined with mucus, intimately mix¬ ed with bloody serosity, similar to the fluid which had been evacu¬ ated. The gall-bladder and urinary bladder, as in the former case, contained a large quantity of their respective fluids. The kidneys were in a state of congestion, and the heart was in a state of hypertro¬ phy, which, however, had evidently no connection with the admi¬ nistration of the medicine. The whole intestinal tube, with the appearances which I have described, is deposited in the museum of the Royal College of Sur¬ geons of Edinburgh. My father published in 1837, in the forty-seventh volume of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, (p. 345) a series of experi¬ ments instituted for the purpose of elucidating the action of this drug, and for regulating his practice as totheextent to which it might bepre- scribed with safety. From the results of these experimental trials he discovered that more than 170 minims of the Vinum Seminum Colchici cannot, in general, be safely administered, in the course of twenty-four hours, to an adult ; and that even this quantity, administered in doses of from fifty to sixty drops, at considerable intervals, is often more than advisable, as its cathartic and irritating effects on the mucous membrane of the stomach and alimentary canal were very violent. These results coincide exactly with my own experience, and satis¬ factorily prove that the directions given by many other writers are highly dangerous, and calculated to do much mischief. Its principal effects, when administered in this manner, are im-