Treatise on Poisons by Sir Robert Christison

promise that, in so far as British practitioners are concerned, it may ere long be excluded from the list of those which imitate irritant poisoning. Meanwhile, however, malignant cholera must be allowed to bear, in its essential symptoms and their course, a marked resemblance to poisoning with the irritants. So much indeed is this the case that some authors have actually compared its phenomena to the effects of arsenic, tartar-emetic, and other powerful acrids. In many cases the two affections are undoubtedly not so distinguishable by symptoms as to warrant a physician to rely on the diagnosis in a medico-legal inquiry. But in many other instances the distinction may be drawn satisfactorily. Thus the uneasiness in the throat which sometimes attends cholera never precedes the vomiting. The vomiting in cholera is never bloody. The colour and expression of the countenance and whole body are peculiar. In frequent instances the early signs which resemble poisoning are followed by a secondary stage, sometimes of simple coma, sometimes of typhoid fever, which a practised person may easily distinguish from the secondary phenomena produced by some irritants. Lastly, no mistake can arise where the patient, before presenting the symptoms common to both affections, experiences violent burning pain or certain tastes, during or immediately after the swallowing of food, drink, or some other article.