POISONING BY CARBON DISULPHIDE.
Used to kill insects in grain, etc., in barns. Locally anæsthetic, and irritant. Inhaled, toxic, causing excitement, anæsthesia, collapse. Large doses, excitement, reckless movements, incoördination, giddiness, sleep, stertor, paraplegia. Small doses, weakness, emaciation, tremors, paraplegia, polyuria, mellituria; convulsions, death. Distortion and varicosity of axis cylinder, and unequal staining of cytoplasm. Treatment: pure air, good diet; massage, electricity, tonics, phosphorous.
This agent is largely used in vulcanizing and other factories where the employes are liable to suffer, and also in granaries, barns, etc., for the destruction of insects in grain and other objects and where animals are liable to suffer.
Locally it acts like chloroform, when confined to the surface, as under a glass or covering, producing very active irritation with anæsthesia.
Inhaled it produces intoxication, excitement, general anæsthesia and finally collapse. In rabbits it causes intense excitement, giddiness, swaying from side to side, and reckless leaps forward, followed by profound sleep with deep stertor, and paraplegia for half an hour after the return of consciousness (Oliver). When taken for a long time in smaller quantity it caused weakness, emaciation, tremors, paraplegia, and death in convulsions. There was polyuria, with excess of sugar but neither urea nor albumin. The large cells in the motor areas of the brain, when stained by Golgi’s method, showed the axis cylinder distorted and varicose, and the cytoplasm stained unequally. The action on dogs was essentially the same, and in neither animal were changes in the blood globules observed (Oliver).
In man slow poisoning caused headache and exhilarate intoxication, followed by depression, mental apathy, dullness, loss of memory, impaired vision, hearing, sexual desire and muscular power. Cramps are common (Delpech, Curtis).
Treatment consists in giving pure air, good food, massage, galvanism, tonics, and for the persistent nervous failure phosphorus.