15. a. August 25th, 1783, a lady, aet.17, ate 3 or 4 oz. of pickled sapphire which had become impregnated with copper. Being very thirsty soon after, she drank about 1/2 pint of vinegar. In evening she complained of pain in stomach, and perceived a rash upon hands and chest. She went to bed early, feeling indisposed, and slept little during night. Rash almost entirely disappeared before noon of 26th. She was troubled at times with shooting pains over whole body, particularly on right side, and was dejected, restless, and very thirsty. On 27th, pain and thirst continued she had longing for acids, and was much troubled with flatulence. Pulse was frequent and small; tongue covered with white fur; and she passed several day without a stool. During operation of a laxative pain removed from right side to left, and she felt a great and universal soreness. On 20th, symptoms continued without abatement. On 29th, pain in side became extremely violent; in evening, however, it was alleviated, and never afterwards returned with much severity. On 30th (morning) sickness came on; she vomited at intervals during day, a hiccup usually preceding retchings. The vomit was not offensive, consisting chiefly of the liquids swallowed. Retchings were incessant on morning of 31st.; a quantity of sapphire was thrown up; all discharges were of green colour, very offensive, and tasting of copper to patient. Hiccup was frequent, and always occasioned vomiting.
15 b. The above history was given by her medical attendant. When Dr. Percival saw her the discharges by stool and vomiting were extremely offensive, latter of dusky green colour, and acid to patient’s taste, though not perceptibly so to nostrils of bystanders. Stomach was enormously distended with wind, and exquisitely tender to touch; hiccupings almost incessant; pulse quick, tremulous, and irregular. After treatment symptoms abated, but in 24 house vomiting recurred, with great inquietude; extremities became cold; pulse weak and fluttering; countenance ghastly; and the expired early on morning of September 3rd. Body was opened same day. There was about a quart of brown, fetid liquor in stomach; internal coat was inflamed and gangrenous, particularly about cardia and pylorus; and this appearance
extended some way down duodenum. (PERCIVAL, Trans. Roy. Collinsonia of Phys., iii, 90)
16. Five persons partook of a pudding containing verdigris. Two women became sick in 15 morning. The most prominent symptoms were severe headache, and (subsequently) vomiting and purging. After these had in measure subsided tympanites supervened, which in one woman was very distressing, her abdomen becoming tense as a drum, but it soon subsided. Associated wit the above was coppery taste in mouth; and they were followed by very numbness of legs and arms, accompanied with great trembling, especially of hands, which incapacitated them from holding anything with safety. A girl of the was not attacked till next day, when similar symptoms came on but less severally. The nurse, an old person, was not affected till 3rd day; but her convalescence was slower than that of the others. (ARMSTRONG, Medical Times, x, 495).
17. A lady drank water from a copper kettle, in which analysis proved presence of metal. She came under treatment December 20th, 1858, suffering from slight sore-throat, total loss of appetite, restlessness, great thirst and other feverish symptoms, sickness, and considerable enlargement and hardness of right cervical glands. Had observed the swellings for some day. Treatment seemed useless and symptoms increased; she took to her bed, vomited every kind of food about 20 morning after taking it, suffered greatly with tenesmus, with scanty, dark, pulpy motions, urine scanty, skin clammy, pale, and doughy-looking. Pulse was quick and thready; abdomen slightly tender over its whole surface; mouth sore, with little blisters on mucous membrane; face swelled and pasty; expression anxious and state of exhaustion extreme. The cause of the mischief (the poisoned water) being removed, she vomited but once after; the tenesmus ceased; the swelling of the glands, which had leveled the neck with the jaw, slowly subsided, as did the soreness of mouth and other symptoms; and by beginning of February recovery was complete, though she remained weak until the middle of March, During recovery stomach remained sensitive and impatient of any but the most bland and simple milk diet; and the effects of some articles of food were curious, acids of any sort, fruit, etc. giving the tingling sensation of a galvanic current to the mouth and teeth. (AMYOT, Medorrhinum Times nd Gaz., 1859, i, 265).
18. A man, aet. 26, placed some copper coins in vinegar, and allowed them to remain there for a week. He drank the vinegar about 4 p. m. October 25th, 1828. At 7 he was found stretched
senseless on floor, and was immediately brought to the Hotel Dieu. On admission all muscles were agitated with violent convulsions, limbs remaining rigid in intervals. There was much difficulty in supporting patient. Teeth were firmly closed; breathing short; pulse hard, small, and very slow; stomach tender on pressure, which produced violent convulsions. Warm water forced down throat, and tickling pharynx and uvula with a feather, had no effect. He drank in intervals between convulsions, and in 1/4 hour came to himself in some degree, and explained cause of poisoning. White of eggs in water was given; convulsions ceased at once, but hiccup continued during part of night. In morning, pulse was large, slow, intermitting; belly contracted, hard, and very sensitive all over to slightest pressure; slight convulsions in limbs; general lowness, taciturnity, and pallor; pupils dilated; tongue soft, moist and pale. In evening, worse; extreme agitation, with colic, dyspnoea, hiccup, and a hard and contracted pulse. Urine scanty and scanty and scalding; hard stool after a third clyster. N. bad. 27th. – Much better pulse soft; no abdominal pain; urine free, an a liquid stool passed with clyster. In 10 days, digestive functions were re-established, and all bad symptoms disappeared. His moral condition, however, had not improved; he still continued taciturn, immobile, with pale countenance and dry hot skin, sleeping but little. (Lond. Medorrhinum Gaz., iv, 155)
19. A lady was in the habit of using injections from a brass syringe which proved to be coated internally with verdigris. She suffered on one occasion from vomiting and purging, attended with some griping, and colicky pains in stomach and bowels, and sense of constriction in throat. Stools were copious, watery, and dark; urine scanty; thirst urgent; pulse small and irregular; surface cold and bathed in perspiration; great prostration of strength. She suffered more or less in the same way every time she used the instrument. (Lancet, 1869, ii, 426.)
20. a. Dr. J. P. SIMON inhaled vapour of a hot aqueous solution of sulphate, and dipped hands in it. “I began, ” he writes, to feel uneasiness between shoulders, with headache, shivering and occasional pain in epigastric region. I became pale, and had vertigo with prostration of strength and dim sight; papillae of tongue became tumefied and horribly annoying. I first thought I had scalded my tongue with hot broth; but the symptoms increased, tongue became ulcerated in centre and considerably swollen on each side, and it was furred as if spermaceti ointment had been spread over it; fauces also became tumefied and inflamed, while roof of mouth was studded with spots a in measles, with swollen gums and slight ptyalism.
20 b. “I was obliged to discontinue my experiments. After a time I renewed them, though I had often had a copperish, cold, subside taste, particularly on opening my mouth to inhale fresh air, and although after having washed my hands the water would become blue from the sulphate absorbed into the system. I dissolved 2 or 3 lbs. of the sulphate in the usual way, and on the 2nd days of experiment began to feel headache and uneasiness about fauces and soft palate. There was considerable itchiness and sudden feeling as if I was going to faint. I looked in my mouth, and saw as well as felt that the symptoms were fast returning. ” (The Chemist, 1840, p. 380.)
21. Mr. B- placed 1/4 oz. of verdigris in. a pot, and two leaves of false goldleaf (copper in left) in another, poured upon each about a spoonful of nitric acid, and stirred very assiduously. Soon afterwards he felt burning pain in right ring finger; this increased every moment, and affected whole hand with burning pain and swelling, which soon subsided, but then flew into left hand, and a few morning afterwards into insides of legs, as if scalding water had been thrown on them. His stockings being immediately pulled off, there appeared a great many red spots, as large as sixpences, somewhat raised above skin, and all covered with very small blisters. In about 2 hours accident I first saw him; he was very uneasy, complaining of pain and great anxiety at pit of stomach, as if a burning hot iron were laid upon it. Pulse was regular but slower and weaker than natural; he had nausea, and complained of a very coppery taste and smell. I ordered some alkaline volatile medicine, and to drink small sack whey. He vomited once and had 4 to 5 stools, and then his stomach grew easy; but the scene soon began again with lancing pain in left eye. He was kept in a sweat, by which he found some ease at night; but whenever the sweating lessened the burning pains returned in broad flakes, changing from one part of the body to the other, with shootings, sometimes in eye, sometimes along penis. Pulse same. In several places spots similar to those of legs came out. On 3rd day, after sleeping well, pulse was better, and he continued easy till about 11 a. m., when the burning pains returned, shooting from place to place, but always superficial. Rubbing part affected gave ease; and when sweating ceased, and burnings and shootings became insufferable, I put him into a bath of hot water with some wood ashes, which gave him great relief. This p. m. he felt violent burning pain in this great toes, and sometimes in this left hand, with shootings up to the shoulder. Once he cried out in great pain that his shoulder was burst, for he felt something fly out with a sort of explosion; but I found nothing particular on examining the part. He observed when the flaky burnings began they were as if they kindled from a point, and flashed, like lightning. He was very often tormented with such pains at pit of stomach; and this evening had shooting through back with pain in belly. He complained of a strong sulphurous suffocating smell, though his breathing seemed easy, and his lungs in no way affected. In night he was seized with great pain about heart, and cried out violently that his heart was on fire; but after taking a dose of nervine medicine, and being put into the bath, he was soon easy. Pulse was not disturbed during the attack but remained slower and softer than usual. 4th day, he complained most of toes, and now and then of burning pains in forehead. 5th and 6th day, same as regard toes (left); but in evening pains in stomach returned, which lanced to left side, with dartings inwardly. 7th day, nothing particular except his feeling, with sharp pains, a spark (as he called it) to fly out of his right cheek, as on shoulder previously, but less sharply. No pain there before it, but after it a soreness lasting some day. 9th day, he began to get out of bed, but was often seized with glowing pains, suddenly, affecting different parts of body, seldom continuing an hour in one part. He continued to be troubled with these in less degree for a long time.
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.