THE ADRENAL SYSTEM AND ANTITOXIC SERUM. 647 



bodies of the purin group. Phosphoric acid must be a product 

 of a similar kind, since, like uric acid, its excretion fluctuates 

 under the influence of certain drugs, quinine, for instance 

 (Kerner). Thyroid extract, as is well known, increases meta- 

 bolic activity through the adrenal system, as we have seen, and 

 simultaneously augments phosphoric-acid elimination. Arsenic 

 does likewise and increases, as does thyroid, excretion of urea: 

 evidence of overactivity of the adrenals induced by the toxic. 

 The vast field covered by oxidation processes in the or- 

 ganism, apart from those connected with cellular function, is 

 well illustrated in the following quotation from an article by 

 J. W. Wainwright 27 : "In the body itself organic drugs, like 

 other chemical bodies, are either fully oxidized and burned to 

 carbonic acid and wat^r or urea or else a slight chemical change 

 results in the molecule, in which the annular grouping of the 

 nuclei is preserved. Besides, the organism possesses the ability 

 to bring about syntheses, and in this way hamper or abolish 

 the action of drugs to a certain degree. Our knowledge of 

 these processes had led to many valuable additions to our drug 

 treasury. Substances which comprise the three great groups 

 of nutritive material, such as albumin, fat, and carbohydrates, 

 are reduced almost completely to their lower metabolic com- 

 ponents in the body: C0 2 , water, and urea. Generally speak- 

 ing, substances of the fatty series are readily accessible to oxi- 

 dation. The behavior of those bodies in which the nuclei have 

 an annular grouping is more resistant; in these only the fatty 

 lateral chains are oxidized, although under certain circum- 

 stances the benzol nucleus may also undergo combustion. The 

 fatty acids are oxidized in the body without exception, as are 

 likewise the oxy-fatty acids. It is otherwise with these bodies 

 when the H atoms are replaced by halogen radicals. Oxidation 

 then becomes more difficult, although trichloracetic and tri- 

 chlorbutyric acids are partly oxidized with separation of HC1. 

 The alcohols of the fatty series are oxidized to acids, as methyl- 

 alcohol to formic acid. The esters of methyl-alcohol, like that 

 substance itself, methylamin, oxymethansulpho acid, formal- 

 dehyde, also go over into formic acid. Ethyl-alcohol, acetone, 

 and other derivatives of the fatty series do not yield formic 



27 J. W. Wainwright: Therapeutic Monthly, March, 1902. 



