2. a. Drs. Brown and Fraser conclude from their experiments with C. upon frogs that in relatively small doses it first produces paralysis of the motor nerves, and subsequently of the reflex function of the spinal cord; but that in relatively larger doses it first occasions paralysis of the reflex function in these animals. Damourette and Pelvet, in their exhaustive experimental treatise upon this subject, arrive at conclusions essentially identical with those above stated; but they also claim to have demonstrated that C. occasions a destructive alteration of the red blood-discs. They state that in poisonous dose it prevents the coagulation of the blood, rendering it dark and fluid.
2 b. No poison, except prussic acid, excels C. in the subtlety and rapidity of its operations. A drop placed on the eye of a rabbit killed it in 9 morning; by a like application of 3 dr., a strong cat was destroyed in 1 1/2 morning; and 5 dr. placed in the gullet of a small dog caused its death in 1 morning. Introduced into the veins, the fatal effect was almost instantaneous. (STILLE, op. cit.)
3. M. VERIGO experimented with C. upon man, frogs, rabbits, and dogs. His conclusions are: 1 C. acts most strongly on the spinal cord, affecting especially the motor nerve-fibres. 2. This action is established in frogs by the phenomena of paralysis, without any trace of convulsion whatever. In mammals, on the other hand, the most violent convulsions occur after large (lethal)doses of the poison, whilst after small or non-lethal doses paralysis in the extremities only occurs. 3. The phenomena of paralysis proceed from the spinal cord to the peripheric system of the motor nerves, which therefore first becomes affected after the cord itself. 4. The brain appears to be but little affected by C. 5. Administered in small doses, C. retards respiration, and may in large doses altogether paralyse the respiratory acts – which effects depend, not (as Kolliker supposed) upon an affection of the peripheric nerves, but upon paralysis of the cord. 6. The convulsions produced in mammals by C. from a tolerably certain indication of the fatal issue of the case in which it has been administered. They constitute a symptom of the poisonous action of the drug, and do not depend upon paralysis of the respiration. 7. The blood does not undergo any alteration, the corpuscles at any rate retaining their capability of absorbing oxygen. 8. C. exhibits no action upon the heart or pulse. 9. It depresses the temperature of the body, and to a greater extent the more distinctly the paretic symptoms are produced. 10. Its action on the pupil is not constant. 11. It has no influence upon the quantity or quality of the urine. 12. P. M. examination shows no appearances characteristic of poisoning with the drug. [*”It is probable that this experimenter operated with a preparation of C.containing methyl-conium, which has been shown by Crum Brown and Fraser to affect first the motor columns of the cord”(BARTHOLOW, Mat.Medorrhinum and Theridion, sub voce).( Practitioner, vii, 58.)
4. In 1856, Kolliker announced that the failure of motion in conia poisoning is due to a direct action of the alkaloid upon the efferent or motor nerves. He first experimentally found that in frogs killed by the drug the application of a galvanic current to a nerve fails to induce contractions in the tributary muscles. He then tied the aorta in such a way as to cut off the supply of blood to the hind extremities, and found that after voluntary motion had ceased in the forelegs, and even after galvanic stimulation of the anterior nerves had lost its influence upon the muscles directly supplied by these nerves, irritation of the same anterior nerves produced reflex contractions in the hind legs, showing that the anterior afferent nerves and the spinal cord still retained functional activity after the loss of it in all those efferent nerves reached by the poison. After repeating these experiments a number of times he drew the conclusions already given. his experimental results have been confirmed by Funke, by Gutmann, and by MM. Pelvet and Martin-Damourette. (H. C. WOOD, op. cit. ).
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.