Chittenden and Blake—Distribution of Antimony, ete. 275 
the bones likewise. Dr. Nevins further states, that it was difficult 
to detect the poison in the muscles and in the blood, but it was 
found in the bones as late as the thirty-first day after discontinuing 
the poison. 
Dr. Richardson* in 1856, examined the tissues of a dog that died 1 
hour and 40 minutes after a solution containing a drachm of tartar 
emetic had been injected into the cellular tissue. The antimony was 
found in the following parts, in the order given as to quantity ; blood, 
vomit, rectum, lungs, liver, stomach, bladder, kidneys and small in- 
testines. In a second experiment, a wound in a dog’s neck was 
dressed every morning with tartar emetic ointment, the dog dying 
at the end of the seventh day. In this case no antimony was found 
in the brain, but it was found in larger quantities in the liver and 
spleen than in the other organs. It is very evident, therefore, that 
tartar emetic, and presumably other salts of antimony likewise, will 
penetrate all the tissues of the body and that at the same time the 
antimony is constantly being eliminated by the kidneys. Further 
than this, the few results recorded indicate nothing definite. As Dr. 
Richardson well says, ‘‘the election of antimony by different parts of 
the body is as yet an open question; that the liver, however, would 
appear to be the structure in which it is most collected when the ad- 
ministration is slow and in small doses; and that the elimination of 
the poison is attempted by all the secreting surfaces.” No positive 
statements can therefore be made regarding the relative distribution 
of antimony, other than in a general way. 
Hence, it has been our object in the present investigation to study 
somewhat in detail, the relative distribution of antimiony in the dif- 
ferent tissues of the body under varying conditions ; both as to the form 
of the poison and the manner of its introduction. As with arsenic, so 
with antimony, the relative proportion of poison found in the different 
tissues after death may become of considerable medico-legal importance, 
provided we have sufficient confirmatory data from which to draw 
conclusions. Particularly is it of importance to know the way in 
which the form of the poison will influence its distribution. Whether 
as with arsenic,+ the administration of a soluble and diffusible form of 
the poison will lead to a noticeable accumulation in the brain or nerve 
tissue in general. 
*See Woodman & Tidy, p 129. Also Dr. W. B. Richardson, Abstract in Amer. 
Jour. Med Sciences, 1857, vol. 33, p. 266, and B. and F. Med. Chirurg. Rey. Oct. 1856. 
+ See Amer. Chem. Jour., vol. v, p. 8, also Studies from the Laboratory of Phys- 
iological Chemistry, 8.S.S. of Yale College, 1884-85, p. 141. 
