Castor oil is usually considered a harmless drug, but the castor
bean, from which it is derived, contains a poisonous acrid
principle, three such beans having sufficed to produce death in a
man. Doubtless some of the instances in which castor oil has
produced symptoms similar to cholera are the results of the
administration of contaminated oil.
The untoward effects of opium and its derivatives are quite
numerous Gaubius treated an old woman in whom, after three days,
a single grain of opium produced a general desquamation of the
epidermis; this peculiarity was not accidental, as it was
verified on several other occasions. Hargens speaks of a woman in
whom the slightest bit of opium in any form produced considerable
salivation. Gastric disturbances are quite common, severe
vomiting being produced by minimum doses; not infrequently,
intense mental confusion, vertigo, and headache, lasting hours
and even days, sometimes referable to the frontal region and
sometimes to the occipital, are seen in certain nervous
individuals after a dose of from 1/4 to 5/6 gr. of opium. These
symptoms were familiar to the ancient physicians, and, according
to Lewin, Tralles reports an observation with reference to this
in a man, and says regarding it in rather unclassical Latin:
" .
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