652 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



ordinary quantity at rest. The capillaries be- 

 come greatly enlarged, and the tension in the 

 arteries falls, while it rises in the veins. 



Action of Poisons. Some interesting results 

 are derived by Dr. E. Maurel from his experimen- 

 tal researches on the action of poisons on leuco- 

 cytes. He finds that the toxic action of strych- 

 nine on the alkaloids of the animal economy is in 

 the ratio of its destructive action on the leuco- 

 cytes. The immediate effect of the poison on the 

 white corpuscles is to arrest their spontaneous ac- 

 tivity and fix the elements in the spherical state. 

 A similar concordance was found with atropine 

 between the quantity of toxic material necessary 

 to kill the animal and that necessary to kill the 

 corpuscles. As both the hare and its leucocytes 

 enjoy a comparative immunity against this same 

 alkaloid the immunity of the animal seeming 

 to be closely associated with the immunity of its 

 leucocytes-^-the author is led to the conclusion 

 that the leucocytes probably have a principal 

 part to perform in poisoning by it. From a 

 similar investigation. Dr. Maurel concludes that 

 death by cocaine is the consequence of the death 

 of the leucocytes or of modifications which they 

 sustain under the action of that agent. Thirty 

 times as much cocaine is required to kill an 

 animal when the salt is taken by the mouth as 

 when it is injected into a vein. In death by 

 intravenous injections of toxic solutions, the 

 death may be caused by the leucocytes suddenly 

 killed being swept along the blood stream and 

 acting as emboli. These elements, in fact, after 

 death take the form of rigid disks, the long 

 diameter of which exceeds by one third at least 

 the caliber of certain capillaries. 



The systematic investigation of the albumose 

 which is the active material of cobra poison has 

 been made by A. A. Kanthack, of Cambridge 

 University. The study of the reactions showed 

 that only one, a primary albumose, is present. 

 Tests for the presence of an alkaloid led to a 

 negative result. The action of the poison is 

 cumulative, and experiments show that a more 

 toxic action is produced by injecting at intervals 

 smaller doses. Heat lessens the action of the 

 albumose, but it requires prolonged boiling to 

 destroy it when pure and concentrated. Dif- 

 fused light has no influence on the solution of 

 albumose or the natural poison. The effect of 

 bright sunlight was not tried on account of 

 the time of year. Of chemical agents, caustic 

 potash and caustic soda destroyed the toxic 

 power rapidly, but it was restored on the addi- 

 tion of acetic acid. Chlorine water destroyed it 

 if allowed to act long enough ; trichloride of 

 iodine, if used strong enough ; permanganate of 

 potash, if allowed to act twenty-four hours. 

 Carbolic acid destroys the toxic power of weak 

 solutions; pancreatin destroys the toxic power 

 or delays the toxic effect considerably; nitrate 

 of silver, corrosive sublimate, tannic acid, and 

 alcohol destroy it by precipitating the albu- 

 mose ; ammonia lessens it if allowed to act long 

 enough; and citric acid and pepsin lessen it 

 somewhat. Animals may be accustomed to 

 withstand large doses of the poison ; but it is 

 necessary, in the experiments, to allow a suffi- 

 ciently long interval to elapse between succes- 

 sive doses, as the cumulative effect of the al- 

 bumose is well marked. Injections of cobra 



blood and serum, which were said to give im- 

 munity, and injections of the poison itself, 

 boiled till its toxic power was destroyed, gave 

 only negative results. All the substances which 

 outside of the body lessened or destroyed the 

 activity of the albumose, were tried as protective 

 and curative agents, with no success. Strychnine 

 was proved to be neither a chemical nor a physi- 

 ological antidote. The result of experiments 

 made with reference to that especial point was 

 to satisfy the author that the observations of 

 S. Weir Mitchell and Beichert and Wolfenden, 

 indicating the presence of a globulin in the poi- 

 son, are not conclusive, but that the body called 

 a globulin is nothing but a mixture of hetero- 

 albumose and dysalbumose. 



In publishing his tracings, or graphic records, 

 of the action of chloroform and ether on the 

 vascular system, John A. MacWilliam marks as 

 the chief points to be noticed in them the evi- 

 dences of enf eeblement and dilatation manifested 

 in the heart under the influence of chloroform, 

 these changes frequently beginning even before 

 the conjunctival reflex was abolished and when 

 the fall of blood pressure was not greater, and 

 often not so great, as during chloroform an- 

 aesthesia brought about by inhalation in the 

 usual way ; and the contrast between the effects 

 of ether and chloroform upon the heart when 

 the respective anaesthetics are administered, 

 freely diluted with air, in such an amount as to 

 cause abolition of the conjunctival reflex. The 

 dilatation of the heart caused by chloroform is 

 due to a direct action of the anaesthetic upon 

 the cardiac mechanism. It is not obviated by 

 section of the vagus nerves. It does not de- 

 pend upon the fall of systemic arterial pressure ; 

 and it is not produced by obstruction of the 

 pulmonary circulation. 



Much, says a writer in the " Boston Medical 

 and Surgical Journal," remains to be discovered 

 relative to the kinds of ptomaines that may de- 

 velop in animal and vegetable substances out of 

 the body, as well as of the toxines that may 

 form in food after its ingestion. Doubtless the 

 possibilities of ptomaine formation are very 

 great, and under unusual conditions of insalu- 

 brity hot, damp weather, sewage emanations, 

 etc. the work of decomposition may go on with 

 extraordinary rapidity, and, under the influence 

 of microbes, toxalbumens of great power may 

 form in food that to the eye and taste is still 

 wholesome. There is accumulative evidence to 

 show that this is so. At the same time every 

 investigator of the subject is confronted by the 

 fact that meats that have undergone partial de- 

 composition are not necessarily unwholesome or 

 toxic, for some savage tribes, as the Patagonians 

 and Fiji Islanders, habitually eat putrid meat 

 that is swarming with bacteria. From our 

 present standpoint of enlightenment as to the 

 development of toxines during processes of 

 putrefaction we can not well understand such 

 facts. It must, however, be borne in mind that 

 robust, healthy stomachs are very tolerant of 

 foods which under circumstances of enfeeble- 

 ment of the digestive tract would cause sickness; 

 that the digestive fluids are more or less de- 

 structive to microbes ; and that the liver when in 

 a healthy state is capable. of destroying con- 

 siderable quantities of poisonous substances. 





