CHAPTER XII. 



THE INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND THE 

 PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



WiLLOUGHBY 1 refers to a case of opium poisoning in which 

 the narcosis was so profound that the application of the strong- 

 est possible interrupted current to the soles of both feet did 

 not excite the slightest movement even of the toes. When 

 about a quart of salt solution had been infused by gravitation 

 into the subcutaneous tissue of the flank, the effect was almost 

 immediate and striking. Within twenty minutes the duskiness 

 and coldness of the skin had given place to a natural color and 

 warmth, and the patient had so far recovered sensibility and 

 consciousness as to struggle violently against the mechanical 

 and electrical stimulation employed to keep her awake. 



What is the intimate nature of the process through which 

 saline solutions are enabled to so wonderfully restore func- 

 tional activity? In the course of investigations concerning the 

 distribution of intravenously injected solutions of chloride of 

 sodium and chlorate of sodium, Sollmann 2 found that, when 

 they were introduced directly into the blood-stream in large 

 quantities, the greater portion of them had disappeared in 

 three minutes, while in one-half hour the composition of the 

 blood was about as it was originally. A curious fact noted was 

 that the total quantity of blood was diminished notwithstand- 

 ing the injection of a large quantity of fluid. The latter left 

 the blood-stream to enter the "tissues," then passed out in the 

 urine. The itinerary of the fluid and salts up to their final 

 excretion was completed in about half an hour, and the molec- 

 ular concentration of the plasma showed no marked change. 



In the light of our views, the "tissues," i.e., the proto- 

 plasmic cellular elements of which they are composed, are evi- 

 dently not the structures primarily influenced by the presence 



* Willoughby: Lancet, May 10, 1902. 



2 Sollmann: Archiv fiir experimentelle Pathologic und Pharmakologie, Bd. 

 xlvi, H. 1 und 2, 1901. 



(G67) 



