In large doses it is a poison causing giddiness, deafness, salivation, sweating and convulsions.
Then profuse salivation, paralysis of the tongue and larynx, and inability to speak.
After a few minutes the salivation is arrested owing to the constricting influence of the drug upon the blood-vessels that supply the glands.
Lead poisons the muscular and nervous systems, and gives rise to paralysis, wasting, colic and other symptoms, while in the case of mercury, tremors, salivation, anaemia and very marked cachexia are induced.
Pilocarpine has an action closely allied to that of nicotine, but as it is much less poisonous (the effects produced by small doses being chiefly excessive sweating and salivation), it is capable of being utilized in medicine.
