70. Man, et. 44, was exposed to arsenical vapours from fusing a mixture of tin and lead with arsenious acid. He soon had extreme dryness of throat, much constriction of fauces, and general uneasiness. He slept awhile, but on waking found his symptoms increased; had uneasiness of stomach, with nausea, occasional vomiting, colicky feeling in bowels, and dyspnoea. These symptoms persisted and increased, and in 3 or 4 d. profuse melaen came on, he vomited blood, and his sputa were tinged by it. On 12th d. Dr. Bird found him with symptoms very similar to those of fever, but without cerebral depression or heaviness; skin very hot; eyes retracted; face very pale, with flush on each cheek; tongue furred, with red streak down middle and redness of tip; pulse throbbing and hard; pain at scrob. cordis; last stool pitch-like, but free from blood. No vomiting for last few d. Post. portion of both lungs found on auscultation to be affected with pneumonia, and lower lobes partially consolidated. On 13th d. the pneumonic sputa appeared. (Lancet, 1843-44, i, 98.)
71. TACHENIUS, breathing incautiously the fumes of A., was surprised to find his palate impressed with a sweet, mild, grateful taste, such as he never experienced before. But in 1/2 h. he was attacked with pain and tightness in stomach, then with general convulsions (?), difficult breathing, an unspeakable sense of heat, bloody and painful micturition, and finally with such an acute colic as contracted his whole body for 1/2 h. By use of oleaginous drinks he recovered from these alarming symptoms; but during all succeeding winter he had a low hectic fever. (Hippocrates Chymicus, ch. 24, p. 213.)
72. Miners, and other workers in A., suffer more or less in their health from the poisonous exhalations. The diseases engendered are essentially chronic, but sometimes fatal. The general symptoms are said to consist of dyspepsia, headache, difficult and painful urination, dyspnoea, palpitation, convulsions, paralysis, sometimes dropsy. The local effects are coryza, nasal ulcers, hoarseness, sore throat, red and swollen gums with salivation, and a whitish line along edge of gums produced by lodgement of arsenical dust. The skin where most delicate is apt to be attacked by erythema, and an itching papular eruption. There is a constant and slow fever, with loss of death. (STILLE, from PATISSIER, Mal. des Artisans, p. 20.)
73. Drs. Harting and Hesse, of Schneeberg, have found the majority of cases of death among the miners there due to lympho- sarcoma of the lungs. According to them it is the arsenical dust which causes this; the metal being inhaled in its nearly insoluble combination with cobalt, conveyed undecomposed to the bronchial glands, and there setting up a state of irritation which causes these glands to swell. [ A lady took ars. for many years for an eruption. Seven months before death had violent attack of neuralgia of shoulder, which afterwards extended to both groins, thorax, and back. This was relieved for a time, but continued with most agonizing severity. Abdomen became enormously tympanitic; paraplegia slowly ensued, and she died. P.M. showed general enlargement of thoracic and abdominal glands, many of which had assumed the non-malignant form of melanosis. The reporter considered this disease due to the ars. (GIBB, Lancet, 1858, i, 613) ] (Vierteljahrschr. f. gerichtl. Medorrhinum n. offentel. Sanitatswesen, lxxxi, 102, 313.)
74. A woman, et. 54, was affected at various periods with lancinating erratic pains referred to the shoulder and nucha, accompanied with fever. She left Vienna and got well. Six months after she returned to her home she was seized with violent fever, lancinating pains in head and shoulders, and subsequently profuse perspirations, followed by disappearance of the fever. The lancinating pains diminished, but she experienced extremely painful sensations of irritation and distraction in head. These returned regularly every other n. and lasted until m., the attack always terminating in abundant sweating. Lancinating pains continued in shoulders, arms, and epigastrium after the subsidence of the attack. There was complete anorexia, with a clean tongue. The room was coloured with arsenical green. The patient was treated with pot. iod. (gr. 2 1/2 ter in die); during this treatment arsenic was found in the urine in such quantity that its presence could be easily shown by Marsh’s test. LORINSER, who reports the above and other cases, calls attention to the dyspepsia, the epigastric pain, the peculiar perversions of cutaneous sensibility, and the headache, as being most characteristic of arsenical paper poisoning. (Wien. M. Wochenschr., 1859, Nos. 43, 44.)
75 a. child, et. 3, had just recovered from diphtheria. Child was sitting on a chair in a listless state, pale, slight colour over cheek-bones, lustrous glistening eyes, palpebral conjunctiva red, and all the appearance of a child which had been crying. The head was on one side, and pain was felt on raising it from a rheumatic affection of the sterno-mastoid. Pain over umbilicus and epigastrium at times; mouth and gums of a preternaturally bright colour, full of saliva as from mercury; very slight ulceration on edge of tongue.
75 b. At the inquest on the death of the child (3 others had also died) the mother gave the following additional symptoms; weakness, head on one side-as it fell down, could not get it up. Nostrils sore and dark; child rubbed and picked them; eyes watered much; complained of stomach, arms, and legs. The mother had smarting of eyes; daily pain over brows for four months, disappearing in a week after removal of paper; also numbness and kind of cramp in arms and legs, and pain in side. Her husband had pain in chest: after his work he felt overtired; did not sleep so well as before. When stripping the room of the paper the mother felt a heavy, queer sensation in the throat.
75 c. Post-mortem. -Stomach had several streaks of inflammation therein; bowels slightly inflamed; mesentery congested and inflamed, of a bright vermilion colour; mucous membrane thickened, readily rubbed off. (Lancet, 1862, ii, 516.)
76. A young woman had been ill for 10 weeks; had headache, pain over brows; smarting of eyes; defective sight; irritation of nostrils and upper lip; mouth and gums tender; all teeth aching; throat dry; pain at pit of stomach, sometimes very severe; short dry, hacking cough; breathing short; general tremor; great prostration; loss of appetite. Had not rested well of weeks; symptoms always worse in m., especially the running of eyes and headache. Within these few weeks she had become almost blind; could not see at all without wearing spectacles. On removing the paper she soon recovered. (Ibid.)
77. General symptoms observed in 21 cases of poisoning by green wall-pigments:-General ill-health, faintness, loss of appetite, depression, irregularity of bowels, coldness of extremities, restless sleep with unpleasant dreams; patient appears as if in a consumption; skin discoloured and becomes pale or of a yellow clay colour, and then, in adults, brownish spot appear on face, and especially on forehead, temples, and cheeks; sometimes urticaria; in one case, where there was a tendency to it, ecchymosis; hair of head falls off, but only in severe cases; in one case abnormalities of nails; when there is much feverishness there is absorption of fat, but when there is no pyrexia these deposits are left untouched, or there is even a tendency to grow fat in parts, as in arsenic eaters; conjunctival catarrh and affections of eyelids are frequent; mucous membrane of mouth either pale or red and inflamed, with increased flow of saliva, sometimes containing pus; not infrequently chronic inflammation of throat, dryness, tickling, and hawking up of viscid or purulent sputa, occasionally streaked with blood; sometimes inflammation of pharyngeal mucous membrane and diphtheritic symptoms, pain in swallowing; heartburn, sense of weight at stomach, eructation of odourless gases, nausea, vomiting; appetite unaffected, diminished, or entirely lost; colicky pains and loud rumbling in intestines; of the abdominal organs liver is most affected, and sometimes there is slight jaundice; in one case the internal organs underwent fatty degeneration; kidneys undergo the same pathological change as liver; painful urination is characteristic, though not always present; in 6 cases out of 8 A. was found in urine; the female sexual organs are thrown into sympathetic irritation; hoarseness and violent cough, most troublesome at night; irritability and loss of memory, especially for recent events; melancholy, and faintings, often intermittent, were notable symptoms; quiverings of muscles, especially those of hands, face, and tongue, were prominent; sometimes incomplete paralysis of extremities, preferably the lower ones, but the muscles remained susceptible to electricity; disturbances of sensation usually slight, consisting of formication, numbness of hands and feet, in some cases diminution of sense of touch; hearing often impaired; frequent headache of the most varied situation and character; sometimes so-called muscular rheumatism; in mild cases no pyrexia, but in severe cases where more A. has been absorbed, there is fever, often intermittent (even though there may have been no exposure to malaria), speedy prostration of strength, and inflammation of different organs. The chief diagnostic signs of this poisoning are, weakness out of all proportion to the local lesions, cachectic appearance and cold extremities; brownish discoloration of face; inflamed eyelids; disturbances of mobility, especially in lower limbs; a burning sensation during urination; intermittent symptoms, and flying rheumatic pains. (KIRCH-GASSER, Viert. f. gericht. u. offent. Medorrhinum, ix, 96.)
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.