in Rouquayrol's case; for there were ramified vessels in it, and one so large that blood issued on pricking it. A prominent symptom in general is distressing strangury, and it commonly concurs with suppression of urine and the discharge of blood.[1] It would appear that, when the genital organs are much affected, the inflammation may run on to gangrene of the external parts. Ambrose Paré notices a fatal instance of the kind, which was caused by a young woman seasoning comfits for her lover with cantharides.[2]
The preceding symptoms are occasionally united with signs of an injury of the nervous system. Headache is common, and delirium is sometimes associated with it.[3] In a case communicated to Orfila the leading symptoms at first were strangury and bloody urine; but these were soon followed by violent convulsions and occasional loss of recollection.[4] The quantity in that instance was only eight grains; and it was taken for the purpose of self-destruction. In one of Graaf's four cases the patient was attacked during convalescence with violent phrensy of three days' continuance.[5] An instance is also related in the Transactions of the Turin Academy, of tetanic convulsions and hydrophobia appearing three days after a small overdose of the tincture of cantharides was taken, and continuing for several days with extreme violence.[6] The cause of the symptoms, however, is here doubtful.
A rare occurrence is relapse after apparent convalescence. In a case communicated to me by Dr. Osborne of Dundee, which there was every reason to believe had arisen from cantharides administered to a girl by an unprincipled scoundrel, the usual symptoms of violent irritation in the bladder and rectum prevailed for 36 hours; and an interval of quiet and apparent convalescence ensued for three days. But on the fifth day the urinary symptoms returned, and were attended with great prostration, a rapid feeble pulse, and severe diarrhœa for two days longer. She eventually recovered. Another girl, poisoned at the same time, had most distressing irritation in the bladder, and for some time passed nothing but drops of blood; but she got well in two days, and had no relapse.
The following fatal cases deserve particular mention. Orfila quotes one from the Gazette de Santé for May, 1819, which was caused by two doses of twenty-four grains taken with the interval of a day between them, for the purpose of suicide. The ordinary symptoms of irritation in the bowels and urinary organs ensued, miscarriage then took place, and the patient died on the fourth day, with dilated pupils and convulsive motions, but with unimpaired sensibility.[7] Another instance related by Dr. Ives of the United States, presented two stages, like that related by Orfila, but with the remarkable difference that an interval of several days intervened between the irri-*
