CHLORIDE OF SODIUM. 433 



From the abundance in which it exists both in the saliva and 

 the gastric juice we miget be led to infer that it essentially pro- 

 motes the solution of the food, and its future changes, or at all 

 events, that it contributes to impede abnormal decompositions 

 and metamorphoses of the food. 



Several observations which I have made, tend to show that the 

 excess of salt conveyed into the blood is not merely carried off by 

 the kidneys with the greatest possible rapidity, but also by other 

 secreting organs, as the salivary glands, the gastric glands, &c. 

 While the gastric mucous membrane of a dog with a fistulous 

 opening into the stomach, secreted a juice, when the stomach was 

 empty and artificially stimulated, which, according to Blondlot, 

 contained 0*126^ of chloride of sodium, I obtained a gastric juice 

 in a similar manner from a dog into whose jugular vein I had half 

 an hour previously injected two ounces of a saturated solution of 

 salt, which contained 0'385. These facts are rendered more per- 

 ceptible by using either of the analogous salts, the iodide of sodium 

 or of potassium ; iodide of potassium, when injected into the veins, 

 appears with extreme rapidity in the stomach, although I am not 

 quite certain whether this is not in a great measure dependent on 

 its very rapid presence in the saliva, and on its finding its way 

 into the stomach through that fluid ; for I have convinced myself 

 that the iodide of potassium passes from the blood in larger quan- 

 tity, and with more rapidity, into the saliva than into the urine. If 

 we take a few grains of iodide of potassium in the form of pills, and 

 at once convince ourselves that no iodine is retained in the buccal 

 fluids, we can in the course of from 5 to 10 minutes recognise iodine 

 with certainty in the saliva, although it cannot be then detected in 

 the urine even if we examine that fluid directly after its secretion 

 by the kidneys, as it drops from the ureters. Bernard* has made 

 similar observations with prussiate of potash, lactic acid, and 

 other substances 5 after injection into the jugular veins of a dog, 

 they very rapidly appeared in the gastric juice. 



Enderlinf found 6l'93% of the chlorides of sodium and potas- 

 sium in 100 parts of the mineral constituents of saliva. 



Proutt found from O'l 2% to 0' 13 of the chloride of sodium with 

 a little chloride of potassium in human gastric juice; Braconnot, 



* These soutenue a la faculte de Paris, 1844. 



t Ann. d. Ch. u. Pharm. Bd. 50, S. 56. 



t Phil. Trans, for 1824, p. 45. 



Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. T. 59, p. 113. 



2 F 



