THE ADRENALS IN DISEASE AND POISONING. 45 



Paul Bert, Phisalix, de Varigny, and others, sometimes gives 

 rise to intense congestion of certain viscera. 



Are we really dealing, in this connection, with variations 

 of vascular tension and pressure? The presence of increased 

 vascular pressure is illustrated by the effects of smaller doses 

 or weaker poisons. Thus, Phisalix and Langlois 95 are stated 

 to have found that salamandrine in small doses stimulated car- 

 diac action and greatly increased vascular pressure in dogs, 

 while large doses gave rise to ecchymotic spots and haemor- 

 rhages. So intense was the central depletion observed in frogs 

 that Dutartre hardly found a few drops of blood in the heart. 

 Mosso found that ichthyotoxin, the tissue-venom of the eel, 

 greatly increased blood-pressure, causing convulsions, while 

 small doses only caused slight and ephemeral increase of press- 

 ure, followed by a tendency toward diminution. He further 

 ascertained manometrically that the venom did not paralyze 

 the vessels (obviously since the poison had nothing to do with 

 it): a fact also sustained by the regular contractions of the 

 rabbit's auricles. 



Intimately associated with the phenomena just outlined 

 are those connected with the heart. Do venoms affect this 

 organ as does adrenal extract? Weir Mitchell and Reichert 

 observed that snake-venom exercised a moderating action on 

 the heart. We now know that suprarenal extract acts directly 

 on the muscular elements of this organ. Vulpian called atten- 

 tion to the fact that toad-venom and triton-venom arrested the 

 heart by reducing the irritability of its walls. Kauffmann 

 found that viper-venom caused it to beat rapidly, but feebly, 

 the weakness increasing with the rapidity of the beats, but he 

 could find no moderator nerves. A weaker venom, on the other 

 hand, salamandrine, in small doses, was found by Phisalix and 

 Langlois 96 to strengthen the weakened animal's heart and its 

 arterial tension. The correspondence between these effects 

 and those induced by suprarenal extract is thus further em- 

 phasized, since in all the venoms both actions are observable 

 according to the dose and the power brought into activity. 



The same variations of pressure, cardiac and vascular, are 



96 Phisalix and Langlois: Academie des Sciences, Sept. 6, 1899. 

 88 Ibid., Sept. 16, 1899. 



