and Inorganic Substances on Gas Metabolism. 419 
total of our knowledge regarding the action of arsenic on tissue 
changes. 
Our experiments were made with rabbits in a condition of hunger, 
deprived of food for three days prior to the experiment, and the 
results appear to show that arsenious acid, in the case of rabbits, has 
a tendency to diminish the excretion of carbonic acid, presumably 
through its action on the metabolic activity of the tissue cells. The 
amount of arsenic given was quite small and the animal seemed 
wholly unaffected by the poison. 
Action of potassium antimony tartrate. 
Voit* states that antimony in large doses affects proteid metabo- 
lism in the same manner as arsenic, and since Saikowsky has shown 
that both arsenic-and antimony tend to produce a fatty degeneration 
of the various organs, in which presumably the fat is formed from the 
decomposition of proteid matter, the non-nitrogenous moicty of the 
albumin molecule being stored up as fat instead of being burned to 
carbonic acid, it seems natural .to expect that these two substances 
when taken in large quantity at least, should like phosphorus diminish 
both the consumption of oxygen and the elimination of carbonic acid. 
With rabbits our results with antimony certainly lead to this con- 
clusion. Even small doses of tartar emetic quickly !ead to a dimin- 
ished excretion of carbonic acid and also to a noticeable fall in tem- 
perature. In the first series of experiments, the results of which are 
shown in the accompanying tables, the excretion of carbonic acid fell 
from 363°6 milligrams per 37°5 litres of aspirated air to 203°8 milli- 
grams and with a fall in temperature of from 39° C. to 346° C. The 
total amount of tartar emetic given was 82 milligrams. 
In the second series of experiments, where as before, the rabbit had 
been deprived of food for three days prior to the experiment, still 
. smaller quantities of antimony were given with even more pronounced 
results, both in the diminution of carbonic acid and in the depression 
of temperature. Thus while in the normal period the excretion of 
carbonic acid amounted to 396 milligrams per 37°5 litres of aspirated 
air and with a normal temperature of 38°6° C., tartar emetic (0°055 
gram) given in divided doses reduced the carbonic acid to 106°5 mil- 
ligrams per 37:5 litres of aspirated air and the temperature to 270° C. 
Ackermannt has already called attention to the great decrease in 
animal heat produced by antimony, notably in the case of rabbits: 
* Hermann’s Handbuch der Physiologie, Band vi, p. 184. 
+ See H. C. Wood, Therapeutics, etc., p. 158. 
