I, — Some Experiments on the Physiological Action op Uranium 

 Salts. By R. H. Chittenden and Alexander Lambert, M.D. 



In 1885, experiments were commenced in the laboratory of phys- 

 iological chemistry at Yale University, to ascertain something 

 regarding the physiological and toxical action of uranium salts. At 

 that time there was little accurate knowledge concerning uranium. 

 Gmelin* had, in 1824, performed a few experiments with the nitrate 

 from which he concluded that this salt is a feeble poison ; thus he 

 states that 15 grains had no eifect on a dog, that 1 drachm merely 

 caused vomiting after more than an hour's interval, and that 34 

 grains killed a rabbit in 52 hours by stopping the iiTitability of the 

 heart, while 3 grains injected into the jugular vein of a rabbit 

 caused instant death. Later, in 1851, there appeared a statement 

 in the British and Foreign Medico-chirurgical Review that Lecoute 

 always found sugar in the urine of dogs slowly poisoned by small 

 doses of uranium nitrate. This statement was commented upon by 

 Hughes in his manual of pharmico dynamics (p. 866), and has been 

 made the basis of a claim by the so-called homa?opathic school that 

 uranium nitrate is a remedy for diabetes. Hughes also refersf to a 

 monograph by Edward Blake on urapium, where three persons and 

 nineteen animals were experimented on. In none of Blake's subjects, 

 however, human or brute, was sugar eliminated in the urine. 

 L^lceration of the pyloric end of the stomach and of the duodenum 

 was found well marked in several of the animals, although in no 

 case was the drug introduced directly into the stomach. Hughes, 

 likewise, refers to several cases of diabetes which he considers were 

 cured by the exhibition of small doses of uranium nitrate,J one-sixth 

 to one-third of a grain three times a day. This constitutes all the 

 matter bearing on uranium that we have been able to find. 



Our work was commenced by a series of experiments on the in- 

 fluence of a variety of soluble uranium salts on the action of the 

 araylolytic and proteolytic ferments occurring in the animal organ- 



* Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. xxvi, p. 136. 



t Ibid., p. 867. 



1^ Lancet, June 13, 1874. 



Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. VI [I. 1 Nov., 1888. 



