2. =Irritants.=--These are substances which inflame parts to which they
are applied. The class includes mineral, animal, and vegetable
substances, and contains a larger number of poisons than all the other
classes together. Irritants may be divided into two groups: (1) Those
which destroy life by the irritation they set up in the parts to which
they are applied; (2) those which add to local irritation peculiar or
specific remote effects. The first group includes the principal
vegetable irritants, some alkaline salts, some metallic poisons, etc.;
and the second comprises the metallic irritants, the metalloids
(phosphorus and iodine), and one animal substance, cantharides.
_Symptoms._--Burning pain and constriction in throat and gullet, pain
and tenderness of stomach and bowels, intense thirst, nausea, vomiting,
purging and tenesmus, with bloody stools, dysuria, cold skin, and feeble
and irregular pulse. The vomit consists at first of the food, then it
becomes bile-stained, and later dark coffee-grounds in appearance, due
to extravasation of blood from the over-distended vessels in the gastric
mucous membrane. Death may occur from shock, convulsions, collapse,
exhaustion, or from starvation on account of chronic inflammation of the
gastro-intestinal mucous membrane.
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