Calomel with muriatic acid, corrosive sublimate, mercuric chloride,
iodide, nitrate, cyanide. Fatal dose. Symptoms: anorexia, salivation,
thirst, emesis, colic, diarrhœa, rumbling, debility, tremors, stupor,
death. Lesions: corrosive whitening of gastro-intestinal mucosa,
congestion, ulceration, blackening, bloody, glairy ingesta. Treatment:
albumen, emesis, demulcents, chlorate of potash, bitters, iron
sulphate. Test: copper and muriatic acid.
Calomel in itself cannot be looked on as corrosive, but in ruminants in
which it is retained in the system for 3 or 4 days it is largely
resolved into mercuric chloride by the free gastric acid and alkaline
chlorides. It has therefore been largely excluded from the materia
medica of these animals. When in these or other animals it produces
corrosive action, the operation is essentially that of corrosive
sublimate.
The corrosive salts of mercury likely to be taken by animals are
corrosive sublimate now so largely used as an antiseptic, the nitrates
and iodides, and cyanides of mercury used as local applications or as
antiseptics.
=Mercuric chloride= may be taken as the type. It has proved fatal to the
horse in a dose of 2 drs.; to the ox in 1 to 2 drs.; to the dog in doses
of 4 to 6 grs.
_Symptoms._ Loss of appetite, salivation, thirst, emesis in vomiting
animals, colics, diarrhœa, often bloody, weak perhaps imperceptible
pulse, hurried breathing, much rumbling of the abdomen, debility,
trembling, stupor and death.
_Lesions._ Escharotic whitening in patches of the mucosa of the mouth,
throat, gullet, stomach and intestines, with acute congestion,
ulceration and ecchymosis, and sometimes blackening by the formation of
the sulphide. The contents of the bowels may be serous or bloody and
more or less glairy. Like arsenic, mercuric chloride concentrates its
action on the intestinal canal by whatever channel it may have entered
the body.
_Treatment._ The mercury should be precipitated in an insoluble form and
then eliminated by emesis or by the stomach pump. White of eggs is
usually the most available agent producing the albuminate of mercury.
This is, however, still soluble in acid and alkaline liquids, in
chlorides of potassium, sodium or calcium and even in excess of albumen.
Vomiting may be favored by tickling the fauces, or by hypodermic
injection of apomorphia. This may be followed by boiled flaxseed or
copious drinks of rain water. When the mercury has been largely
eliminated the salivation may be controlled by chlorate of potash, and
the digestive disorder met by bitters and iron sulphate.
_Test for Mercury._ Place a few drops of the suspected solution on a
clean surface of copper; acidulate with muriatic acid; then touch the
copper through the liquid with a piece of zinc; a silver colored stain
will be formed easily dissipated by heat.