Excerpt from Monthly Cyclopaedia and Medical Bulletin, 1908, Vol. 22: Consolidated

Much has been written on this subject, yet we can never sound the note of warning too often, especially to those whose experience with the handling of active poisons has been limited. The possible danger of carelessly handling and having vials containing active poisons mixed with other vials containing drugs is great, no matter who handles them, for no one is infallible.

The writer, only a few days ago, had the painful experience to administer antidotes to a young physician who had taken fifteen grains of bichloride of mercury, tablet form, in a mistake for lithium tablets.

He being of a rheumatic diathesis and his kidneys being somewhat in active, he was in the habit of taking two lithium tablets in a glass of water before retiring. During the day he had bought at the drug store bichloride tablets which were dispensed in a vial which was almost identical with the vial containing the lithium tablets. He placed the vial containing the bioblo ride on the same shelf with the lithium vial, and that evening he dissolved two bichloride tablets in a glass of water, thinking he had the lithium without reading the label, and did not discover his error until he had all of the solution in his stomach.

This was, of course, a bad and painful mistake on part of the doctor, but had the bichloride been dispensed in a special poison bottle, he would at once have discovered his error as soon as he touched the bottle. All poisons should be dispensed in rough and colored bottles so that they could be distin guished readily at night by the touch of the hand.

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