NATURE AND MODES OF MANIFESTATION. 393 



received into tlie system, shows itself, is not always the 

 same. This divergence of symptoms and difference in the 

 mode in which the toxic action of the received material is 

 exhibited depends on many and varying conditions, such as 

 the form in which it is absorbed, the quantity taken into the 

 system in a given time, and also, probably, on individual sus- 

 ceptibility. 



The forms of lead-poisoning may be variously divided and 

 considered, having relation either to the mode of the entrance 

 of the poison, or to its visible toxic action. For our present 

 purpose it will be sufficient to regard these in accordance with 

 the results exhibited : 



1. As acute lead-poisoning, or saturnine epilepsy, in which 

 the action of the toxic agent is accompanied with coma, 

 dehrium, or convulsions. This is the form which in cattle has 

 so often been confounded with reflex paralysis, the result of 

 gastric derangement. 



2. Chronic lead-poisoning, or plumbism, due probably to 

 smaller doses and a longer continuance of the hurtful element. 

 Here the characteristic symptoms are not so markedly con- 

 nected with disturbed innervation as with perverted digestion 

 or locomotion. 



From observation and registration of facts, it would seem 

 that in direct proportion to the rapidity with which the system 

 is charged with the poison, so is the intensity and marked 

 speciality of disturbed innervation. Also that in every form 

 the hurtful agent is conveyed throughout the entire body. 

 This is proved by chemical examination, which demonstrates 

 the existence of lead not only in the blood, but in varying 

 proportions in nearly every organ of the body. This cha- 

 racter of affecting or becoming located in differing degrees in 

 different organs and tissues of the body is distinctive enough 

 both in the acute and chronic form : between these various 

 organs and the empoisoned blood there seems a varying degree 

 of selective affinity, some imbibing and retaining more than 

 others. By these investigations we are also tolerably certain 

 that lead, having entered the body, is detained for an indefi- 

 nite period in peculiar combination with the different elemental 

 textures of organs ; that it may be detected in the tissues and 

 secretions weeks after the animal has ceased to receive any 



