238 INTERNAL SECRETION 



eously. Falta and Ivcovic recently discovered that, if exhibited 

 by way of the stomach or intestines, or if given intravesicularly, 

 enormous quantities of adrenalin are tolerated without toxic 

 symptoms of any kind. No signs of poisoning followed the 

 introduction with the probang of 20 mg. of adrenalin into guinea- 

 pigs, 1 6 to 50 mg. into rabbits, and 150 mg. into dogs. The 

 amount of adrenalin in the urine, after both subcutaneous and 

 intraperitoneal injection, was insignificant. After exhibition by 

 the mouth, however, considerable quantities of adrenalin, or of a 

 substance possessing the chemical, physiological and toxic 

 properties of adrenalin, were found in the urine. The authors 

 believe that, when introduced into the stomach, adrenalin becomes 

 fixed, either in the mucosa of the gastro-intestinal canal, or by 

 the agency of the digestive secretions ; that in this manner it loses 

 its specific physiological and toxic properties ; and that, when 

 present in large quantities, it is again released in the kidneys. 



Although adrenalin undoubtedly has a wide therapeutic 

 application, it must be remembered that it is by no means a 

 harmless substance. In its clinical employment, the subcutaneous 

 injection of i mg. is frequently sufficient to provoke toxic 

 symptoms, such as palpitation and headache, while in older 

 people whose vessels are sclerosed, there may be rigors (Falta). 

 Some time ago v. Fiirth pointed out the danger attaching to the 

 indiscriminate employment of suprarenin. 



The symptoms shown by animals dying of adrenalin poison- 

 ing, as well as the cause of death, vary to a certain extent with 

 the method of employment of the drug. After the injection of 

 large quantities into the jugular vein, the animals usually collapse 

 at once and die after a few respiratory movements. In such 

 cases, death is due to momentary arrest of the heart's action or to 

 fluttering, consequent upon the cessation of circulation. The 

 injection of the simple lethal dose, more particularly into 

 the peripheral veins, frequently produces cedema of the lungs in 

 rabbits, the animals dying within a few minutes. Many of the 

 symptoms which appear in connection with the respiratory 

 apparatus, such as the shallowness and infrequency of the breath- 

 ing, the progressive dyspnoea, together with the fact that the 

 animals may be kept alive for a long time by means of artificial 

 respiration, point to inadequacy on the part of the respiratory 

 nervous apparatus. This nervous inadequacy may be primary 

 or, and this is more probable, it may be a secondary result of the 

 changed circulatory conditions. 



The subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection of sufficiently 

 large doses is, at first, followed by a stage of intense excitement, 

 accompanied by repeated vomiting and sanguineous diarrhoea; 

 later on, there is increasing weakness and, finally, extreme 

 prostration with complete paralysis ; death follows after a few 

 hours twenty-four at the most. The autopsy reveals a high 



