2. Dr. Arrowsmith, of Conventry, observed a case which lived 13 hours after an unknown quantity of the acid. He complained more of pain shooting down from loins to limbs than of pain in belly; and had an eruption of mottled appearance on the skin in circular patches of a deep tint of redness. (Christison, op. cit.) 3. February 1st, 1825, at 7 p. m., Charlotte Walker, 12, drank a wineglassful of a solution of oxalic acid (strength 3j to 3j water = of oxalic acid). Immediately acrid burning in mouth, gullet, and stomach. Complained when seen (very soon) of pain in stomach and belly; appeared greatly alarmed; pulse quick, not strong. Got ipecacuanha wine and tartar emetic, without result. Irritation of fauces with finger caused vomiting. This relieved the pain. She got carbonate of lime as an antidote. Put to bed she fell asleep for 2 hours. On awaking complained of lassitude and feebleness, particularly of lower extremities. Next morning, numbness and weakness of back and lower extremities, making it difficult to go upstairs. This gradually went off and she quite recovered. (SCOTT, Edin. Medorrhinum and Surg. Journ., xxiv 67.)
4. A man swallowed at 7:50 a. m. 3ss of ox. ac. in solution by mistake for Cheltenham salts. Great irritation of fauces and stomach succeeded. Drinking water, and taking 4 gr. of tartar emetic, caused vomiting, but no alleviation; diluted ammonia aggravated, but magnesia greatly relieved, burning distress. Pain, spasms, and vomiting (with blood), occurred from time to time; respiration was impeded; general numbness complained of; clammy moisture bedewed whole frame; pulse scarcely perceptible; extremities cold, nails livid; general agitation and loss of strength. By noon, reaction had taken place, and became pyrexial; pulse 96 and firm. Diaphoresis followed, with pulse at 120 and small; in evening 100. Tingling felt at tips of fingers. Early in morning retching, spasms and hiccup set in, – last continuing several days, also numbness in left arm. On 3rd day face swollen, voice hoarse, general anxiety. Till 7th day seemed improving much; hiccup then increased and emaciation set in; tongue patchy; complained of acidity; inclined to dose, and occasionally had hallucinations. On 11th days and eruption, papular and itchy, appeared all over body, which it reddened. Debility and emaciation increased; nothing but the blandest articles could be taken; and he died on 13th day. P. M.-Found complete destruction of villous coat of stomach. (FRASER, Ibid., xiv, 606.)
5. A middle-aged shoemaker, a hard drinker, took 1/4 oz. of acid in crystals. Prepared chalk was given freely. Symptoms were: severe burning sensation in mouth and throat with great thirst and difficulty of swallowing; excruciating pain in epigastrium and cold, clammy perspiration; numbness and tingling in extremities, legs drawn up towards abdomen; pulse but just perceptible; breathing slightly spasmodic; features anxious and pallid. 8 p. m. (9 hours after first visit). Hot feeling in throat and tingling of extremities continued. A new symptoms presented itself, viz. alteration of voice. The man, previous to taking the poison, possessed a remarkably deep bass voice; it was now reduced to a very low key, giving one the idea of a person talking in an undertone. This symptom remained for more than a month without any amelioration, during the greater part of which period his legs used for several hours a day “to go to sleep,” as the termed it. Nine weeks from time of taking acid his voice, though stronger, was still “a complete old man’s voice.” [ “In a case related by Mr. Edwards to the Westminster Medorrhinum Society, the patient, a female, lost her voice for eight days; but whether this depended on the action of the oxalic acid she had taken, or not, it is difficult to say.” (TAYLOR, Poisons, p. 249) ] (BRADLEY, Medorrhinum Times, xxii, 293.)
6. A woman took 3iij in about 3iij of water; the greater part was evacuated within 15 m. by means of stomach-pump. Subsequently there were convulsions, spastic contractions of muscles of jaws and extremities, forcible closure of mouth and drawing down of its angles; dilated alae nasi, corrugated eyebrows, twitching of facial muscles and insensibility. Great cerebral excitement afterwards occurred, accompanied by dry coldness of surface and imperceptible pulse; symptoms less marked during intermission of tetanic spasms; spasmodic symptoms declined in 3 hours from taking poison. (BOURNE, Lancet, 1851, i, 329.)
7. A man took 477 grains dissolved in 5 oz. of water. Besides usual symptoms, face was tumid and of livid complexion, urine suppressed entirely, no stool (even after enema). vomits grass-green fluid. 4th day – Pulse 132, full and hard; tongue has thin brown coat and red dry tip; very thirsty; no pain, but still distressed and anxious; vomiting diminished. 5th day. – Pulse 122, full, hard, and intermittent; tongue covered with brown coat, red at tip and dry; is very thirsty; passed urine twice in night. 6th day. – Pulse 100, full, not hard; vomits less; is delirious at times; tongue covered with bright yellow coat; passes urine; skin of face, head, chest and nates covered with red spots or petechiae, appearing as if bespattered with blood. 7th day. – Pulse 104, hard; tongue covered with brown coat, tip red and dry; no pain, but still distressed; vomits less frequently; feels sinking sensation at stomach. 10th day. – Evidently sinking; face hippocratic; pulse almost insensible to touch, very weak; delirium and stupor; bladder distended with urine, but cannot pass it; does not vomit, although he has a desire to do so; petechiae still visible. Died quietly at 9 p. m. (JACKSON, Boston Medorrhinum and Surg. Journ., xxx, 17.)
8. A robust man, aet. 40, took a quarter of a teaspoonful of “salts of lemon” (binoxalate of potash). Two hours afterwards was attacked by vomiting, and about the same time by severe pain in loins and feeling of great weakness in lower extremities. Six days afterwards, when first seen by the writer, complained of lumbar pain, swimming in the head, sensation of coldness succeeded by burning heat in chest and stomach, and great muscular weakness. Micturition was accompanied by sensation of scalding. Tongue abnormally red and irritable looking. Three days later says he has suffered from spasmodic contraction of hands, cramps in legs, and heaviness and pain in head. Tongue and fauces still red and irritated. (WEBB, Medorrhinum Times and Gaz., 1859, ii, 379.).
Experiments on animals
1 a. When injected in a state of concentration into the stomach of a dog or a cat ox. a. causes exquisite pain, expressed in cries and strugglings. In a few m. this is succeeded by violent efforts to vomit, then by sudden dulness, languor, and great debility and death soon takes place without a struggle. After death stomach is found to contain black, extravasated blood, exactly like blood acted on by the acid out of the body; inner coat of stomach is of a cherry-red colour, with streaks of black, granular, warty extravasation, and in some places surface of coat is very brittle and subjacent stratum gelatinized, evidently by chemical action of poison. If stomach is examined immediately after death little corrosion will be found compared with what is seen if inspection be delayed a day or two.
1b. When considerably diluted phenomena are totally different. When dissolved in 20 parts of water, ox. acid, like the mineral acids in the same circumstances, ceases to corrode, nay it hardly even irritates; but, unlike them, it continues a deadly poison, for it causes death by acting on the brain, spine, and heart. The symptoms then induced very with the dose. When the quantity is large the most prominent symptoms are those of palsy of the heart, and immediately after death that organ is found to have lost its contractility, and to contain arterial blood in its left cavities. When dose is less animal perishes after several fits of violent tetanus, which affects respiratory muscles of chest and consequent suffocation. When dose is still less spasms are slight or altogether wanting, and death occurs under symptoms of pure narcotism like those caused by opium: animal appears to sleep away. (CHRISTISON, op. cit.)
2. The first unequivocal sign of its action is generally a slight permanent stiffness of the hind legs, and increased frequency of the pulse; about the same time there appears a slightly sudden check in inspiration from the respiratory muscles contracting before the chest is fully expanded. Gradually several of them come together, so as to constitute paroxysms of short hurried breathing with intervals of ease. Meanwhile the stiffness of the hind legs increases; they become likewise insensible, and often spasm gives place to paralysis; the animal jerks the head occasionally backwards, walks with a peculiar stiff gait, and assumes very odd postures from inability to regulate the motions of the limbs. As the poisoning advances, the motions of the chest, during the paroxysms, become more and more confined by spasms of the muscles, and at last there is a period towards the close of each paroxysm when the spasm is so great as completely to suspend the respiration. This is commonly accompanied with more or less extension of the head, tail, and extremities, sometimes amounting to violent opisthotonos. The insensibility, hitherto limited to the hind legs, now extends to the trunk and fore legs, and lastly to the head. As the insensibility increases the breathing diminishes in frequency, the spasmodic paroxysms become more obscure and then cease altogether. For some time, however, they may be slightly renewed by striking the back and limbs; but at last the animal falls into a state of deep, pure coma, with complete relaxation of the whole body. The heart can now be scarcely felt; the breathing is low, regular, and short, and becomes gradually more obscure till, finally, life is extinguished without a struggle. If the dose be larger fits of spasm come on early and with great violence, the intervals are marked by remissions only, and the animal expires in a paroxysm before the stage of insensibility begins. Death may be produced in this manner in 3,5, or 10 m. If, on the other hand, the dose be much diminished, there may be stiffness of the hind legs, much dulness, drooping of the whole body, and a sort of somnolency without insensibility, or even without spasmodic paroxysms, and then the animal will commonly recover. (CHRISTISON and COINDET, Edin. Medorrhinum and Surg. Journ., xix, 182.) 3. According to the experiments of CYON, in which ox. acid and the oxalate of sodium were injected subcutaneously or into the cavity of the abdomen, ox. acid and its salts are cardiac poisons. Soon after the injection the pulse becomes very weak and frequent, then follow quickly dyspnoea, convulsions, death; the heart, at once laid bare, is stopped and full of blood. (BURNETT, Brit. Journ of Hom., xxxv, 314.)
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.