_Symptoms._--If poison concentrated, death may ensue at once; if gas
diluted, or exposure only short, insensibility, lividity, hurried
respiration, weak pulse, dilated pupils, elevation of temperature to
104 deg., tonic convulsions not unlike those of tetanus.
_Treatment._--Fresh air, oxygen, with artificial respiration.
Stimulants, hypodermic of strychnine, and alternate hot and cold douche.
=Irritant Gases= are--(1) Nitrous acid gas; (2) sulphurous acid gas; (3)
hydrochloric acid gas; (4) chlorine; (5) bromine; (6) ammonia. They have
the common property of causing irritation and inflammation of the eyes,
throat, and air-passages, and may cause spasm of the glottis,
bronchitis, and pneumonia.
=Sulphurous Acid Gas.=--One of the products of combustion of common
coal.
=Hydrochloric Acid Gas.=--Irrespirable when concentrated, and very
irritating when diluted. Very destructive to vegetable life.
=Chlorine.=--Used in bleaching, and as a disinfectant. Greenish-yellow
colour, suffocating odour. In poisoning, inhalation of sulphuretted
hydrogen gives relief.
XXVIII.--VEGETABLE IRRITANTS
The chief vegetable purgatives are aloes, colocynth, gamboge, jalap,
scammony, seeds of castor-oil plant, croton-oil, elaterium, the
hellebores, and colchicum.
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