100 THE ADRENALS AND THE RESPIRATORY BLOOD-CHANGES. 



determined 64 that venoms first cause alteration of the cor- 

 puscles, and that the freed hemoglobin is then disintegrated. 



Ammonium picrate was found by Erb to cause the blood 

 of animals to assume a dirty-brown color. Nitroglycerin and 

 amyl nitrite are referred to as acting alike. Nitrite of amyl 

 causes the blood to become chocolate colored. Gamgee found 

 that under these conditions the spectrum bands of oxyhsemo- 

 globin disappeared, and were replaced by bands almost similar 

 to those of acid ha3matin. Methsemoglobin is thought by 

 MacMunn to be a mixture of hsematin and soluble albumin. 65 

 The blood had also lost its power to absorb oxygen. Wood 

 remarks in this connection: "The accord of the results of this 

 chemical investigation with those arrived at by a purely phys- 

 iological study of the drug is very striking and very beautiful, 

 both teaching the same thing lessened, but not absolutely 

 arrested, oxidation" 



Copper, in toxic doses, has been found to be attended, 

 according to Wood, with black urine, due to the presence of 

 haemoglobin without unaltered blood-corpuscles. He also states 

 that "after death alterations of the blood and wide-spread fatty 

 degeneration have been noted by numerous observers." Zinc 

 poisoning is referred to as giving rise to the same symptoms 

 as the corresponding salts of copper. Phenacetin is also stated 

 to be followed, when given in large doses, "by general cyanosis 

 and discoloration of the blood, due to the formation of methgem- 

 oglobin." In phosphorus poisoning the blood is stated to be 

 "often profoundly affected, becoming very dark, losing its 

 power of coagulation, and apparently suffering also in its cor- 

 puscular elements, for ecchymoses are almost universal and 

 haematin crystals are occasionally found in the viscera. . . . 

 Silbermann 66 states that thrombi are found in the blood- 

 vessels." 



In potassium-chlorate poisoning the urine, according to 

 Wood, is "often of an opaque reddish-brown or blackish color 

 . . . frequently containing the detritus of blood-corpuscles. 

 Efemoglobinuria has been noticed, and methaemoglobin is a 



64 Pugliese: Archives Italiennes de Biologie, 1895. 



e5 MacMunn: "The Spectroscope in Medicine," 100, 1881. 



ee Silbermann: Virchow's Archiv, cxvii, 1889. 



