3b. The disorders of respiration consist in a very considerable increase of frequency of breathing, and in its becoming very superficial. Fatal doses bring on dyspnoea at the last, and manifestly lead to death by paralysis of respiration. The primary acceleration of breathing is not entirely prevented by section of the vagus although this operation has unmistakable effect upon it. On the other hand, carbolic acid is able to increase the number of respirations in an animal whose vagi have been previously divided. Salkowsky therefore believes that this poison not only affects the respiratory nerve-centres, but also excites the pulmonary terminations of the vagus.
3c. The organs of circulation are less affected by carbolic acid. The frequency of the beats in the frog’s heart gradually diminishes to about half, while the convulsions go on increasing. (BOEHM, Ioc. cit.)
4a. Dr. Ernest LABEE (Arch. Gen., 6e ser., xviii, 451) agrees with Salkowsky in regarding the convulsions as of the central origin, but differs as to the particular centres affected. He found that the convulsions did not occur if the cord or medulla had been previously divided, and that destruction of the whole encephalon had a similar result; but that if only the cerebral hemispheres and the optic lobes were removed, the convulsive phenomena developed in their usual manner. Admitting the truth of these asserted facts, the conclusion is inevitable that the convulsions produced by carbolic acid originate at the base of the brain, and the epileptiform.
The experiments of the two investigators are, with our present light, irreconcilable; but it seems to me that the results of Labee are the most probable. The experiments of Salkowsky are insufficient to carry complete conviction: indeed, he states only that convulsive movements were present to some extent after section of the cord. Further, according to his own researches, the nerves and muscles are not seriously affected by the poisoning; and, this being so, the coincidence of spinal convulsions and of paralysis is apparently inexplicable, and seems to demand the consentaneous existence of an exalted and a depressed state of the spinal ganglia.
4b. According to Labee and to Salkowsky, in acute poisoning the heart is found pulsating regularly directly after death, but is finally arrested in diastole; and in slow poisoning death may be immediately produced by diastolic arrest. Salkowsky asserts that the rapidity of the circulation in a frog’s web can with the microscope be seen to be at first increased by the hypodermic injection of the acid. Hoppe-Seyler found that the arterial pressure did not vary much under the action of the poison until the convulsions came on.
4c. Post-mortem examinations of animals killed by carbolic acid have yielded varying results. In Lemaire’s investigations, intense injection of the alimentary mucous membrane [ Dr. Wood adds:- “a pseudo-membranous and purulent inflammation of the bronchial tubes with a disseminated lobular pneumonia.” These phenomena, however, occurred only in one dog out of 16 experimented on, and Lemaire justly infers that they must have been present before the trials began. Another, already emphysematous, had some pulmonary congestion; but the air passage were sound.-EDS] was observed. Prof. Bruckmuller found the cells of the liver and kidneys in a state of fatty degeneration. This process, which seemingly was the counterpart of the changes in phosphorus-poisoning, was always more advanced in the kidneys than in the liver. Neumann states that it was found in a number of autopsies, and is a constant phenomenon; but Salkowsky was unable to find it in a number of examinations. (H.C. WOOD, Therap., sub voce.).
Hughes was a great writer and a scholar. He actively cooperated with Dr. T.F. Allen to compile his 'Encyclopedia' and rendered immeasurable aid to Dr. Dudgeon in translating Hahnemann's 'Materia Medica Pura' into English. In 1889 he was appointed an Editor of the 'British Homoeopathic Journal' and continued in that capacity until his demise. In 1876, Dr. Hughes was appointed as the Permanent Secretary of the Organization of the International Congress of Homoeopathy Physicians in Philadelphia. He also presided over the International Congress in London.