THE ADRENALS IN DISEASE AND POISONING. 



47 



based on the experiments of Ackermann 97 and Ernst Sentz, 93 

 underlies -the clinical phenomena familiar to all as well as those 

 of Asiatic cholera, cholera infantum, and cholera morbus. 



Antipyrin resembles acetanilid in its action. "Demme, 

 Arduin, Armand, H. Casimir, 99 and Cerna and Carter 100 have 

 separately determined by experiment that in moderate doses 

 antipyrin increases the arterial pressure, while toxic doses 

 lower the pressure." "The toxic dose of arsenic," says Pro- 

 fessor Wood, "greatly lessens the rate and force of the pulse- 

 beat and markedly lowers the blood-pressure." He refers to 

 the experiments of Unterberger, 101 who "found that in an 

 animal under the influence of the poison neither galvanization 

 of a sensory nerve nor of the vasomotor center in the upp.-r 

 cord had any influence upon the force of the blood-current." 

 The reason for this is apparent with the adrenal secretion as 

 a factor of the process. Belladonna, or, better, its alkaloid, 

 atropine, it is stated, "may cause a primary slowing of the 

 pulse (very brief and only to be occasionally demonstrated), 

 followed by an extraordinarily rapid pulse, with a very great 

 rise in the arterial pressure; followed, after a time, if the dose 

 has been sufficient, by a progressive lowering of pressure until 

 death is reached, the rapidity of the pulse being maintained 



until the end' 



'in atropinized animals neither sec- 



tion nor galvanization of the vagi affects the pulse-rate." 



Bromides, these apparently benign agents, stand in this 

 connection as actively toxic as many of the more virulent drugs 

 reviewed. They seem to inhibit suprarenal activity even in 

 small doses. Schouten 102 found that, during the injection of 

 a 2-per-cent. solution into the vena cava of a rabbit, "the car- 

 diac systole grew slower, the diastolic pauses longer, and finally 

 the heart stood still." Wood considers it as "well established 

 that large, toxic doses of the bromides exert a direct paralyzing 

 action on the heart, lessening both the force and the frequency 

 of the beat, and finally causing diastolic arrest." The relation 



97 Ackermann : Virchow's Archiv, xxv, 531. 



98 Ernst Sentz: Inaugural Dissertation, Dorpat, 1853. 

 90 H. Casimir: ThSse de Lyon, 1886. 



100 Cerna and Carter: "New Remedies," 1892. 



101 Unterberger: Archiv fur exp. Path., etc., ii. 



102 Schouten: Archiv fur Heilkunde, xii, 97, 1871. 



