Dr. E. Lindstrom (Wien. Klin. Woch.) gives an account of his own suffering from arsenic poisoning and that of his II year old son. He had moved into a newly painted house, and it was afterwards found that the paint was highly charged with the poison. It began with a severe neuralgia in the right nervus sacralis. The pain ceased when he rested but began again when he arose. Washing was very painful. Gradually he could hardly do anything with his right hand. The area over the triceps was swollen and tender, and was suggestive of phlegm on. From this point the pain radiated to the back of the forearm and hand, and to the shoulder, back and neck. Muscular rigidity prevented his walking upright, and the pain, which was at first stabbing, became later dull and numb. His son developed conjunctivitis. The cause was then discovered, but in spite of treatment brown pigmented areas appeared on the back of the right hand. When finally improvement set in and the doctor returned to work he found that after three days the numb sensation and then the pain returned, necessitating another three weeks’ rest. Again, when he resumed work the same thing recurred. His loft hand had been tuberculous in early life, and consequently he was “more than usually right-handed.” “The extra work thrown on the right hand and arm is, therefore, probably responsible for the distribution of the neuritis, which was so violent in this case that nerve stretching and even amputation were contemplated.”
The foregoing is condensed from the British Medical journal.
