404 Tartaric Acid in the Organism [June-September 



tartrate on blood coagulation. Buglia and Karczag,^^ however, 

 noted an inhibiting effect. Vietinghoff-Scheel found that small 

 quantities of sodium tartrate inhibited the coagulation of casein by 

 rennin, comparatively large amounts preventing it. These results 

 were ascribed to abstraction of calcium from the blood or milk by 

 the tartrate. Chiari^^ found that lo c.c. of 5 percent sol. of sodium 

 tartrate, administered per os, caused perceptible reduction in the 

 amount of soluble calcium in the intestines, the tartrate precipitat- 

 ing much of the calcium, which passed into the feces. 



Karezag'*" injected, intravenously into dogs, 0.2 gm. each of 

 the various tartaric acids. He found that c?-tartaric acid caused 

 transitory Stimulation of the vagns centre, whereas the /-acid in- 

 duced more prolonged Stimulation. The p- (racemic) and m-acids 

 were intermediate in their effects between the d- and /-acids. On 

 perfusing an isolated turtle-/z^ar^ with n/ioo sol., the acids caused 

 decrease in the f orce of the Systole and loss of tone. The m-acid 

 was less toxic than the other acids, on the ventricle. Both Sakai^^ 

 and Gros^^ also reported depression of isolated frog hearts per- 

 fused with n/100 sol. of tartrates. 



Salant and Hecht^^ found that perfusion of isolated hearts of 

 dogs, cats, and frogs, with sodium tartrate, caused depression. 

 "Thus, perfusion of the cat's heart with Solutions of w/io, n/20, 

 n/40 and n/ioo sodium tartrate, in defibrinated blood diluted with 

 Locke sol., or in Locke sol. alone, was followed by diminished 

 activity of the heart, which became more marked as the concentra- 

 tion of sodium tartrate was increased. It may be remarked, how- 

 ever, that the action did not vary in the same ratio as the concen- 

 tration. The effect of various dilutions was even better exempli- 

 fied in experiments on frog hearts, for which very dilute sol. were 

 employed. When w/300 sodium tartrate sol, was perfused for 30 

 to 60 seconds, a slight cardiac depression was observed, the Systole 



38 Buglia and Karezag : Rendiconti d. r. Acc. dei Lincei Roma, 1909, xviii, 



P. 474- 



39 Chiari : Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharmacol., 1910, Ixiii, p. 434. 

 4° Karezag: Zeit. f. BioL, 1910, liii, p. 218. 



*^ Sakai : Zeit. f. BioL, 1914, Ixiv, p. i. 



*2 Gros : Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 1913, Ixxi, p. 395. 



*3 Salant and Hecht: Amer. Jour. Physiol., 1915, xxxvi, p. 132. 



