Complete trismus and tetanus; the jaws were tightly clenched, and the lower jaw moved spasmodically from side to side; the arms were cramped towards the chest; the thighs drawn up against the abdomen; the fingers and toes flexed, with whining and groaning; loss of voice; anaesthesia of the skin, and no pain. Every two or three minutes she was shaken by a convulsive spasm, but it was only momentary. The whole body was seized with symptoms of complete and violent tetanus; the jaws being firmly locked and the limbs rigidly extended; aggravated at intervals by violent convulsive movements. When lying on the sofa was seized with a most curious feeling from head to feet, as if his whole body inside the skin (brain included) was made of finest threads; it felt something like numbness, and the ecstatic feeling after a mutual and warm embrace; it lasted about two hours and then passed away at 6 P.M. (third day); returned in slighter degrees up to to-day (thirteenth day). A tetanic paroxysm came on suddenly; the man was thrown into a state of opisthotonos; all his muscles becoming rigid, and respiration for the time suspended. The fit lasted about half a minute, when the muscles became relaxed, and he was again able to answer questions (after nearly one hour). Well-marked opisthotonos, the spasms increasing and affecting respiration, which at one time appeared to cease; patient knew when the spasms were coming on, saying, “It’s coming on;” and there was a sense of impending death, and he said, “Good-bye, I’m dying.” Ice was immediately applied along the spine, and the spasms abated in severity. The intermissions were distinct (after one hour and a half). Spasms are brought on by touching the patient (after two hours and a quarter). Awoke in a spasm, uttering loud cries; on the cessation of spasm, fainted.
On coming to himself, the first drop of water that touched his tongue induced a violent spasm, with loud shrieks and complete opisthotonos. In two hours and a half, had nine spasmodic attacks, more or less severe. The last of these, which seemed to be induced by the application of a cup to the lips, was very intense and prolonged. the patient started suddenly up in bed, his whole frame being in a state of complete rigidity. The limbs were rigid, and the fingers clenched. During the spasms, evident relief was afforded by forcible extension of the body. In the intervals there were constant twitches of the extremities.
Permanent opisthotonos took place, and in this condition the girl remained until her death, which took place probably about seven hours after the poison was taken. She had violent spasmodic contractions of the voluntary muscles, but more especially of the limbs, with extreme pain in all the parts affected. The spasm was at times continued during three of four minutes, and then succeeded by some quick change of position or long succession of convulsive motions. The muscles of the back were so much affected by spasm as almost to render it a case of opisthotonos. Finding it impossible to retain her in her chair, she was placed upon a bed and preserved in that position from local injury. Marked convulsive fits. Five strong tetanic convulsions. Extremities stretched out; hands grasping firmly the sides of the bed; legs apart; feet everted (after half an hour). A severe tetanic convulsion, involving nearly all the muscles of the body and extremities. Chest fixed; respiration difficult; body bent backward (opisthotonos). This was followed by an interval of rest and relaxation of all the muscles, but the patient seemed to be much prostrated. Slight convulsive starts and twitchings of hands and feet followed at various intervals. After this attack the patient became so sensitive that the slightest touch or movement of the bed, or a sudden noise, would cause a spasmodic jerking of the whole body. Violent convulsions. Convulsions, which ceased for a time, and then reappeared, and presented especially, first nervous excitement, and then violent spasmodic contraction of the jaws, with grinding of the teeth, bending backwards of the head, rigidity of the trunk, forcible extension and inversion of the feet, and subsultus of the muscles of the calves of the legs (after five minutes). Convulsive attacks, lasting from one to two minutes, in the which all the muscles became extremely rigid; jaws tightly closed; patient very restless, with short cries.
Convulsions. Convulsive tossing about of the arms; bending backward of the head; biting the teeth tightly together; the hands were tightly doubled up. Convulsions, with red face and closed eyes. Half an hour after the last dose, on rising from a chair, was attacked with vertigo, followed by convulsions of the extremities, relieved during rest, but renewed by a slight movement; speech hurried; while talking, convulsive contractions of the facial muscles; slight trismus; pale face; weak pulse; head covered with sweat; the attack lasted an hour and a half; the patient compared the spasms to electric shocks. Convulsions, with violent movements of the limbs; distension of the epigastric region; staring, shining eyes. After two hours he suddenly became rigid and lifeless; the toes and feet turned outward; eyes open and staring; jaws tightly closed. Extremely painful muscular contractions, lasting three or four minutes, and interrupted by a violent spasm; the body was bent backward in opisthotonos; the impulse of the heart marked, the pulse small, scarcely perceptible, only 20 to the minutes; the function of the brain undisturbed; in consequence of the spasm affecting the masseter muscles the patient bit at everything brought near the mouth.
Rigidity of the muscles of the whole body, as in catalepsy (one of the persons fell suddenly to the ground while conscious); tetanic closure of the jaws. Tetanic rigidity, with violent frequently repeated involuntary shuddering of the trunk and extremities. Convulsions came on, beginning with slight twitches in the muscles of the lower extremities (after half an hour); violent convulsions every few minutes (after one hour). Slight transient convulsion; in a few minutes she had another and a more violent attack, and shortly afterwards another; I should estimate the duration of these fits at from a minute and a half to two minutes; in them she retained her grasp; her whole body was straightened and stiffened; her legs pushed out and forced wide apart; I could not perceive either pulse or respiration; the face and hands were livid, the muscles of the former, especially of the lips, violently agitated, and she made constantly a moaning, chattering noise. I thought she was not unlike one in an epileptic fit, but that she did not struggle, though as she forced herself straight out, it became difficult to keep her from falling on the floor; a fourth and most vehement attack soon followed, in which the whole body was extended to the utmost, and she was rigidly stiff from head to foot; so much that, with all the force I chose to exert, I could not bend the thigh on the pelvis to replace her in her seat; from this she never recovered; she fell after it into a state of asphyxia. Frequently recurring tonic spasms, drawing the body backward, lasting a minute.
Stretched on back, frame shaken by frequent convulsive spasms; limbs rigidly extended, and head slightly bent backwards; the slightest touch brought on a spasm. Her appearance was that of one suffering from tetanic convulsions; her face was livid; the lower extremities extended and widely; the muscles of the chest rigid and very hard to touch; her breathing short and quick; pulse low and fluttering; pupils dilated; consciousness undisturbed. On attempting to pass the tube of the stomach-pump, it produced, on coming in contact with the teeth, a most violent convulsion, and the tetanic state of the whole muscular system returned from merely tapping any part of the body with the finger. She was seized, just two hours and a half from the time of taking the poison, with one of the most awful convulsions it is possible to conceive. Her face was livid; teeth clenched; saliva flowing from the angles of the mouth; the eyelids widely separated; eyes protruded; the pupils fully dilated; so that the whole contour of the face assumed a most horrific aspect; the arms were violently agitate;d the muscles of the chest hard and immovable; breathing suspended; the pulse not to be felt at the wrist; the legs were extended and widely separated, and no effort of mine could either approximate or bend them; there was slight opisthotonos; the fit lasted about two minutes, when the muscular system relaxed, and she was no more. Arms spasmodically flexed on the elbows; fingers tightly clenched, violently pressed against the pit of the stomach; the abdominal muscles spasmodically contracted, so that the abdomen felt stony hard. Head drawn backward, the mouth wide open (opisthotonos alternating with trismus); the tongue was then protruded from the mouth, and was frequently injured by the sudden closure of the jaws. “Drew her mouth about, and stretched herself out in all manner of forms, and was stiff” (soon after ten minutes); the spasms continued at intervals; the chest was fixed, and after the recurrence of such symptoms, increasing in degree, in about an hour and a quarter, or half, after its administration, death took place. Shortly afterwards they partook of their tea, and felt no ill effects for rather more than forty minutes. Dr. T. then rose from, his chair to go into the garden, and proceeded as far as his parlor door when he felt the first symptoms, and exclaimed, “Hold me! hold me!” Mrs. T. sprung from her seat and ran to his assistance, but before she got to him, she also, as she afterwards termed, “was fixed.” The symptoms were most violent. Dr. T. in convulsive agonies, but perfectly calm and collected. The were both, as it were, fixed to the chairs in which they sat. The symptoms in both were exactly similar. As the convulsions came on, the heads were drawn back, there was a spasmodic clenching of the teeth, the heels fixed to the ground, and the eyes as if protruding from their sockets, and both, curiously enough, kept exclaiming, “Hold me! hold me!” although there was a person on either side of each.
Born in 1837in Westminster, Vermont. . He was an orthodox doctor who converted to homeopathy
Dr. Allen compiled the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica over the course of 10 years.
In 1881 Allen published A Critical Revision of the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica.