Lethal dose

“ Fatal Dose.—The minimum fatal dose for cats, dogs, and rabbits, appears to be from ·4 to ·5 grm. per kilogram. Falck has put the minimum lethal dose for man at 15 grms. (231·5 grains) , which would be about ·2 per kilo., basing his estimate on the following reasoning. In 33 cases he had a fairly exact record of the amount of acid taken, and out of the 33, he selects only those cases which are of use for the decision of the question. Among adults, in 5 cases the dose was 30 grms., and all the 5 cases terminated by death, in times varying from five minutes to an hour and a half. ”

“ Even slight intravenous injections of the poison produced quickly a high degree of paresis of the nerve and a corresponding engorgement of the veins of the abdomen, whilst after lethal doses, the paresis culminated in a few minutes in complete paralysis, followed by rapid collapse, excessive weakness of the bloodless heart, and death from paralysis of the latter and anæmia of the nerve-centres. One experiment deserves special record, as it also shows the untenability of the blood-poison theory. ”

“ I was puzzled to understand the specialist’s theory. Did he consider that Weathered had succumbed to a dose that would not have killed a man in ordinary health? And if so, was his death due to some organic weakness, as I had myself suggested when we were viewing the corpse? Or was it possible that Weathered was in the habit of taking the pellets found upon him, after all, and that he had just absorbed such a quantity of the poison into his system that the extra dose proved mortal in consequence? ”

“ Certain anomalies in the symptoms may occur; thus, there may be vomiting and purging, convulsions (the last most frequent in children) , delirium, tetanic spasms, one pupil dilated and the other contracted, paralysis, and anæsthesia. It must be borne in mind that remissions sometimes occur in the symptoms, the patient dying after an attempt at recovery.
A question of some importance may arise as to the amount of volition and power of locomotion which may exist for some time after a poisonous dose has been taken. Death may be due to causes other than the effect of poison. ”

“ No; the case is murder; the poison was administered by some one who wished for her death and deliberately set out to accomplish it,—and succeeded.”
“Is the action of this poison instantaneous?” asked Brunt.
[89]
“No; death ensues about a half hour to an hour after the dose is taken into the system.”
“Then, we gather that the poison was taken in the neighborhood of one o’clock, last night.”
“Yes,” agreed the Coroner, “about one o’clock.”
“About one o’clock!” whispered Anita, in an awe-struck, gasping way, and her great blue eyes stared dazedly into the dark ones of Pauline. ”

“ If, however, it be found only in substances rejected or voided from the body, the evidence is not so conclusive, as it may be contended that the poison was introduced into or formed in the material examined after its rejection from the body, or if the quantity be very minute it will be argued that it is not sufficient to cause death. A poison may not be detected in the body, owing to defective methods, smallness of the dose required to cause death, or to its ejection by vomiting or its elimination by the excretions. ”

“ In the event of the first named powerful poison—the one that defies detection—there is no odor or other discernible indication of any nature. When scientifically administered the fatal dose is less than one billionth the weight of an ordinary human body. ”

“ It has been noticed that, with great relaxation of the muscular system, the patients complain of every movement causing pain. With these general symptoms added to the local injury, death may follow many days after the swallowing of the fatal dose.
Death may also occur simply from the local injury done to the throat and larynx, and the patient may linger some time. Thus, in a case quoted by Taylor, [121] in which none of the poison appears actually to have been swallowed, the man died nineteen days after taking the poison from inflammation of the throat and larynx. ”

“ Fleming recognizes two other modes of death in animals,—first, by an overwhelming depression of the nervous system, proving fatal in a few seconds, without arresting the action of the heart,—and secondly, by asphyxia, or arrestment of the respiration, the result of paralysis gradually pervading the whole muscular system, respiratory, as well as voluntary. But these effects, he thinks, cannot be recognized in the cases which have been published of poisoning in man, because the dose required to produce either of them is very large. ”

“ The mind is confused, the pulse hurried, and the breathing irregular. Salivation may also be present. Tetanic spasms and involuntary evacuations precede the fatal termination. When the dose is from ten to twenty drops, the patient complains of nausea, giddiness, and a feeling of impending suffocation. These symptoms under treatment may soon pass off, or leave the patient more or less confused and listless. In most cases, where the dose is very large, death takes place suddenly, without convulsions; but the period of death does not appear to be as short in man as in the lower animals. ”

“ Would poison given in pills take a longer period to operate on a human subject than on a rabbit?—I do not think we can draw any inference from a comparison of the rapidity of death in a human subject and in a rabbit. The circulation and absorption are different in the two cases. There is also a difference between one human subject and another. The strength of the dose, too, would make a difference, as a large dose would produce a more rapid effect than a small one. I have experimented upon the intestines of animals, in order to reproduce the strychnia. ”

“ Fatal Dose.—Two grains in solution have been known to cause death. Recoveries have, however, occurred after an ounce or more of the poison has been taken. Much will depend upon the fulness or emptiness of the stomach at the time the poison is taken, and also upon the vehicle in which the poison is administered. Vomiting and purging are more urgent when the dose is large, probably assisting to get rid of the arsenic before its fatal action is produced. ”

“ Serjeant Shee again referred to a case in Orfila, in which forty-five grains were given to a dog, and three and a-half months after death a quantity was found in the fat, and some in the liver, bones, and tissues.
Witness: That shows that antimony gets into the bones and flesh, but I never knew a case in which forty-five grains had been given, and I have given no opinion upon such a case.
A pretty good dose is required to poison a person, I suppose?—That depends on the mode in which it is given. A dog has been poisoned with six grains. The dog died in the case you mentioned. ”

“ As death takes place from an asphyxiated condition, the veins of the head and brain, and the blood-vessels of the liver, kidney and spleen, are gorged with blood, and the right side of the heart distended, while the left is empty. On the other hand, a person may die of sudden nervous shock from the ingestion of a large quantity of the acid, and in such a case the post-mortem appearances will not then exhibit precisely the characters just detailed. Putrefaction is retarded according to the dose, and there is often a smell of carbolic acid. ”

“ Fatal Period and Dose.—In one or two cases where the vapour was inhaled, death took place in from one to two minutes. Thirty drops thus taken destroyed life in one minute, and even fifteen drops have proved speedily fatal. It has thus destroyed life in a smaller dose, and more rapidly, than any other known poison. When swallowed, one fluid drachm has proved fatal in a boy, about four fluid drachms in an adult. Recovery has taken place after four fluid ounces. Three hours is the shortest fatal period after swallowing chloroform. ”

“ Whoever tampers with that poison is preparing suicide for himself, and death for all around him that is living. A large dose will kill at once all that is capable of death in a soul which is, in spite of itself, immortal. The slow sipping of small doses will gradually produce the same effect. The general distribution of the poison will destroy more or less rapidly the vital principle of the family, of society, of the state, of human civilization. ”

“ I am not an ordinary doctor. I have made a special study of poisons, as the pupil, I may say the favourite pupil, of the greatest expert alive. I am prepared to swear to you or in any court of justice that the dose I gave him would not have killed any man in a normal condition of health. Sir Frank Tarleton and I both observed symptoms that point to some other drug having been administered to Weathered. ”

“ When oxalic acid is introduced under the same collateral circumstances into the stomach of one dog and the peritonæum of another, the dose may be so apportioned, that the same quantity, which does not prove fatal to the former, kills the latter in fourteen minutes. [56]
While the preceding modes in which poisons enter the blood are indirect, they may be introduced directly by a wound in the vein. There is no way in which poisons, that act through the blood, prove more rapidly fatal. Some which act very slowly through the stomach cause instant death when injected into a vein. ”

“ The dose to be taken was a tablespoonful, and when she tasted it she found that by mistake she had placed her hands on a bottle containing a rather strong poison and a tablespoonful of it would almost inevitably have killed her. Unfortunately, such occurrences are so rare and the reason for them is so hard to find that their consideration as anything more than coincidences seems out of the question. Every medical journal almost brings the story of someone who has taken a dose of medicine that proves fatal, and there is no warning. ”

“ I tried to make this one immune by injecting a dose of the serum twenty-four hours before, and again immediately after she was struck by the snake, but she did not do as well as the other one, and died in three hours and sixteen minutes. All these dogs seemed to die from inability to breathe. The poison apparently acts on the respiratory centres rather than directly on the heart. They all vomited just before they died."
"Have you never found out what the Indians use as an antidote?" ”

“ I think what they know is that it's actually very difficult to kill someone with just a big dose of a barbiturate. And, in fact, they report that in 6% of those cases, there were problems with completion. ”

“ Its effects on the human being are violent retching and vomiting, delirium, convulsions, and intense internal pains. These symptoms generally appear in from an hour to two hours after the fatal dose is swallowed, and death usually results in about six hours. ”

“ I part ways with the plurality, however, to the extent its "substantial risk" test sets a fixed threshold for the first factor. The three factors are interrelated; a strong showing on one reduces the importance of the others.
[p. 117] Lethal injection as a mode of execution can be expected, in most instances, to result in painless death. Rare though errors may be, the consequences of a mistake about the condemned inmate’s consciousness are horrendous and effectively undetectable after injection of the second drug. ”

“ Larger doses produce variable symptoms, mental confusion with nervous ataxic manifestations, stupor, and insensibility; less frequently excitement and convulsions. Skin eruptions may follow a large dose or from its long continued use. In severe cases there is marked cyanosis, feeble pulse, and stertorous and irregular breathing. Death usually results from failure of respiration, or the urine may be suppressed and fatal coma supervene. ”

“ Fatal Dose.—The fatal dose cannot be accurately stated, but children, as in the case of belladonna, are said to bear the drug better than adults. A child a year old died in ten hours from a dose of three grains. Ten grains proved fatal to an old lady seventy years of age. Twenty grains has caused death in an adult in half an hour, and in one case thirty grains. As a rule, any quantity over two drachms may be considered a dangerous, if not a fatal dose, although recovery has been stated to have occurred after one ounce. ”

“ A man, thirty-five years old, took at one dose, for the purpose of suicide, 24 grms. of chloral hydrate. In half an hour afterwards he was found in a deep sleep, with flushed face, swollen veins, and a pulse 160 in the minute. After a further half hour, the congestion of the head was still more striking; the temperature was 39·5°; the pulse hard and bounding 92; the breathing laboured, at times intermittent. ”

“ The great thing is to stop the poison rushing up the veins into the body. To do this bind a cord or handkerchief immediately round the limb above the place where the patient has been bitten, so as to stop the blood flying back to the heart with the poison. Then try and suck the poison out of the wound, and, if possible, cut the wound still more, to make it bleed, and run the poison out. The poison, when sucked into the mouth, does no harm unless you have a wound in your mouth. ”

“ A most minute dose will destroy life, from half to three-quarters of a grain will lay the strongest man prostrate. But in order to produce that fatal effect it must be absorbed into the system, and the absorption takes place in a greater or less period according to the manner in which the poison is presented to the surfaces with which it comes in contact. ”