SODIUM SULPHITE SOLUTION 195 



and deodorant properties are greatly increased when they 

 are used along with the tar acids. 



GENERAL ACTIONS. Sodium sulphite and hyposulphite, 

 when given by the mouth are antiseptic, in the mouth and 

 stomach they limit fermentation and, in the dog and cat, 

 may cause emesis from the sulphurous acid liberated by the 

 gastric juice. They are slowly absorbed and, if in excess, 

 cause depression of the medulla and weakening of the heart 

 with symptoms of dyspepsia, muscular debility, and restless- 

 ness. They are excreted mostly as sulphates in the urine, 

 although a considerable amount (30 per cent.) of the hypo- 

 sulphite is excreted in the urine unchanged. Polli, of Milan, 

 made upwards of three hundred experiments with acid 

 sulphite, mostly upon dogs, and found that it materially 

 diminished the effects of animal poisons. He gave dogs 

 225 grains daily for a fortnight ; very moderate doses were 

 detectable in twenty-four hours in the blood, liver, and 

 urine ; two ounces of blood drawn from dogs, which for 

 five days had received daily with their food thirty grains of 

 sulphite, kept fresh for three weeks ; while blood taken from 

 dogs similarly fed, but receiving no sulphite, became putrid 

 within a few days. Full doses, given previous to death, 

 retarded or prevented putrefaction of the body. 



Polli injected fifteen grains of foetid pus from an abscess 

 into the thighs of two dogs, and next day repeated the injec- 

 tion. Both dogs were stupefied, reeled, and tottered when 

 made to walk, while their pulse and breathing were much 

 quickened. For five days previously both dogs had been 

 treated exactly alike, with this difference only, that one had 

 received daily thirty grains of sodium sulphite, which was 

 continued throughout the experiment. In four days after 

 the injection this dog was again eating, and the wound in his 

 thigh healing. The other, receiving no sulphite, daily 

 became worse, gangrene set in, and in ten days he died, 

 exhausted. 



MEDICINAL USES. These experiments held out great hope 

 that septicaemia might be prevented or cured by sulphites. 

 But repeated careful clinical observation has not justified 

 the high expectations formed of them, and their adminis- 

 tration does not appear to arrest or materially alter the 



