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OPIUM


Opium or afim is the dried juice obtained by incision of the unripe capsules of the white poppy. Its activity is due to the phenantrene and isoquinoline group of alcohloid. The principal alcohloid of opium used in medicine are morphine and codiene. These act as narcotics or sedative.

Sign and symptoms:-
 Its action is characterized by two set of symptoms. Excitement and narcosis. They usually appear within half an hour to an hour after ingestion. The poison acts on the central nervous system causing first a stimulation and later a depression followed by narcosis. 
Accordingly effects can be described in three stages-
1. Excitement
2. Stupor
3. Narcosis

1. Stage of excitement:-
 This stage absent if the dose taken in large. laughter, hallucination, and rapid heart rate.

2. Stage of stupor:-
 The stage of excitement is soon followed by headache, giddiness, weariness, a sense of weight in the limb, diminished sensibility and a strong tendency to sleep. The pupil are contracted to pin point and do not react to light, face and lips are cyanosed  and itching sensation felt all over the body.

3. Stage of narcosis:-
 The patient passes into deep coma from which he cannot be aroused. The muscles are relaxed and reflexes are abolished. The blood pressure falls, the breathing is slow gradually diminished. The skin is cold with profuse perspiration and the temperature falls.

Fatal dose-    200mg of morphine or 2gm of opium
Fatal period-  The usual fatal period 9-12 hours.

Treatment:-
 Emetics can be used but it fails. The stomach should be washed out, gastric lavage should be used.

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