156 Chittenden and JSTorris — The Relative 



membrane of the stomach and intestines, and causing a more or less 

 persistent diarrhoea. Unlike ui-anium, these salts have no apparent 

 action on the kidneys or liver, sections of hardened tissue from these 

 organs showing no change of structure. Further, in every case the 

 urine of the poisoned animal was entirely free from sugar and albu- 

 min throughout the experiment. Both salts tend to produce a par- 

 tial paralysis of the extremities, more pronounced possibly with 

 cobalt than with nickel. They enter the circulation quickly, are 

 rapidly distributed to all parts of the body and are in turn more or 

 less rapidly eliminated by the kidneys. Considerable, however, evi- 

 dently passes directly through the alimentary tract and is excreted 

 through the faeces. 



Both salts appear to raise the internal body temperature quite 

 decidedly, the rectal temperature rising even two or three degrees 

 centigrade. The blood vessels of the eai's, on the contrary, quickly 

 become constricted under the influence of the salts, and the ears ap- 

 pear white and quite cold. 



The storage power of the individual organs is somewhat peculiar. 

 The spinal cord and brain, in the majority of the experiments, stand 

 first in their power of picking up and retaining the nickel and cobalt. 

 This is in close accord with what has already been found with solu- 

 ble forms of arsenic,* and more recently with strychnine sulphate.f 

 It would have been interesting in this connection to have seen 

 whether, as with arsenic, the form of the poison modifies the 

 relatiA'e amount absorbed by the brain and spinal cord, but this we 

 did not have time to try. Again, as with soluble forms of arsenic, 

 the muscle tissue shows in several of the experiments, as Nos. V and 

 VI, a marked affinity for nickel and cobalt, retaining a larger percent- 

 age of the metals than either the liver or kidneys. Still more notice- 

 able, in all of the experiments but one, is the much larger amount of 

 poison in the muscles of the back than in the muscles of the leg; a 

 constant difference occurring in a tissue of the same kind, and hardly 

 explainable on the ground of difference in vascularity. A somewdiat 

 similar distribution of arsenic in the muscle tissue was found by 

 one of us a few years ago in an arsenical poison case.J 



* Chittenden, Amer. Chem. Journal, vol. v, p. 8, also Studies from Laboratory of 

 Physiological Chemistry, vol. i, p. 141. Scolosuboff, Bulletin de la Societe Chiraique 

 de Paris, vol. xxiv, p. 125. 



f R. W. Lovett, Journal of Physiology, vol. ix, p. 99. 



\ Chittenden, Amer. Chem. Journal, vol. v, p. 12. 



