EFFECTS ON THE KIDNEY 



929 



is excreted as a complex with cysteine, or other thiols (Weiner and Miiller, 

 1955). The origin of this cysteine complex is not known, and it may be in 

 the kidney or the blood. The various mercurials are distributed differently 

 throughout the tissues, as one might expect from the different properties of 

 their molecules, and this must play some role in the effects they produce, 



lOO fc -w 



Fig. 7-44. Distribution of Hg^"^ after intravenous injection of 



chlormerodrin in dogs at 1 mg Hg/kg. The curve shows the 



change in urine flow (diuresis) estimated from the figures given. 



(From Borghgraef et al., 1956.) 



not only on the kidney but on other tissues in higher doses. The most 

 thorough study has been made by Kessler et al. (1957 a) and some of their 

 results are summarized in Table 7-19. Hg++ behaves quite differently than 

 the organic mercurials; it does not enter the kidney rapidly but eventually 

 reaches very high levels after several hours. It may be noted that the dis- 

 tribution of p-MB is not markedly different from the diuretic mercurials. 

 Little is known about the cellular fractions of the kidney which accumulate 

 the mercurials, but it is somewhat surprising that Greif et al. (1956) found 

 that by far the most mercury after injection of chlormerodrin to rats, fol- 

 lowed by fractionation of kidney homogenates in sucrose solutions, is in 

 the soluble fraction, about one third the amount in granules, and much 

 less in the nuclei. Although all of these distribution studies are important 

 in understanding many facets of mercurial action, they do not appreciably 

 contribute to our knowledge of where or how the mercurials produce dis- 

 turbances in the renal function. 



