Baryta Carbonica

Correction by Berridge in a letter to Dr. Allen.

Symptom 191, for “his side” read this side [i. e., left side].

Authority. 26, Reduce, Vjs. fur Ger. Med., 1878, S. J., 180, 14, a family were poisoned by 10 per cent. Carbonate of baryta, with a minute quantity of the sulphate of Baryta in meal.

The family consisted of two parents, daughter, and friend ; also a dog and canary bird ate some. The bird died in five minutes; immediately afterwards the dog was taken with violent diarrhoea, and fifteen minutes after the four human beings became sick, the woman being seized with violent diarrhoea. There was paleness, accompanied by a peculiar sensation of tension in the skin. The three women drank some milk, but immediately vomited, after which they felt relieved. The father of the family experienced only rumbling in the bowels; he did not take milk till about 10 P.M.; this was followed by vomiting, with diarrhoea, and the next morning, at 4 oclock, on attempting to go to the closet, he fell to the ground with symptoms of collapse. In the morning the vomiting and diarrhoea ceased, but gave place to paralysis, extending from below upward, so that at 10 oclock he could only nod his head. At 2 oclock the physician found the face red, speech difficult, loss of voluntary motion of the arms and feet, sensation intact; reflex irritation increased; sphincters normal; respiration rapid, with tracheal rales; sensorium free. Pulse and temperature normal. No pain, not even in the stomach. At 9 p.m., the patient died, though he had eaten no more tarts than the other members of the family. The post-mortem showed a most remarkably dark color of the gray substance of the brain. An apparently perfectly normal condition of the intestinal tract and of the stomach. Experiments upon birds with the food showed poisonous action, for the birds became unsteady upon their feet, made irregular movements with their wings, and fell down dead. A dog, after eating 20 grams of the tart, was taken after two hours and a half, with a violent but transient diarrhoea,'^®.