STATE HOETICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 43 



The great question to be solved is this, will moderate doses of 

 the salicylates do harm? Chemical experience shows that no serious 

 harm or inconvenience is seen from quite large doses of the drug, 

 given in the rheumatic state. We know, however, the system un- 

 der certain pathological states will tolerate many drugs it will not 

 in health, and we are not to regard the public as ill. The persons 

 who are ailing and demand the use of the salicylates, are very small 

 in proportion to the millions of consumers of the salicylated foods and 

 drinks. It is a well-known fact that people who have kidney dis- 

 ease cannot tolerate salicylates, and there are plenty of people, who 

 are apparently well, who are suffering more or less from albumineria. 

 Old persons do not tolerate the drug well, — perhaps because the 

 glands that eliminate these salicylates from the system have become 

 enfeebled by age, and in a bad state to do extra work. A feeble 

 heart bears not this drug well. Again, a person who is troubled 

 with different forms of dyspepsia are very unfavorably affected by 

 the salicylates. It may be from the fact that it acts as an anti- 

 ferment to such a class of persons. While these are known facts in 

 regard to the injurious action, is there anything to be said in favor of 

 their use? We think there can. 



When salicylic acid is added to apple juice, for a time it prevents 

 acid ferments and causes it to be pleasant to the taste, besides, it has 

 been found that small doses of salicylic acid may promote digestion 

 where there is fermentative changes in the food as in catarrh, dila- 

 tion of the stomach, also in gastralgia, accompanied with organism 

 of sarcina it is a valuable agent when taken in moderate doses. But 

 if taken in large doses, say from thirty, sixty to eighty grains, it is 

 very apt, if repeated, to cause an uneasy feeling in the stomach, 

 vomiting, with a dull headache, buzzing in the ears, deafness, and 

 lastly, as observed by Ringer, Morehead and others, that under the 

 influences of large doses, accumulations of the acids take place in 

 the cerebo-spinal fluids, causing an excitement at the root of the 

 pneumogastric nerve, and by depressing its function and suspending 

 its action, arrest respiration and causing death by asphyxia. 



In the small amounts of salicylic acid that is required to sus- 

 pend the ferment and destroy the spores in the apple juice, if only 

 a reasonable amount is used, it can only act as a healthy tonic to 

 the stomach — providing the individual has sound heart and liver and 

 free from albumineria kidneys. 



Salicylic acid is not a staple compound, being composed of car- 

 bon, oxygen and hydrogen, the molecules soon lose their magnetic 

 influences for each other, enter new combinations and is no longer 

 salicylic acid, and now the question arises, may not these drinks be 

 just as dangerous, if not more so, owing to the fact that the product 

 of the decomposition of the salicylates are, themselves, dangerous to 

 health. I think they are not, yet I am unable to settle this point to 

 my own satisfaction without further thought. 



