vi INTESTINE AS AN OEGAN OF EXCEETION 359 



that persons who frequent anatomical theatres or dissecting-rooms 

 emit foetid faeces and effluvia which have the putrid odour of 

 corpses. Many physicians in ancient and modern times have 

 considered the intestinal catharsis by which the faeces become 

 diarrhoeic, either from natural causes or from the use of purgatives, 

 as a salutary function, i.e. an excretory process which frees the 

 blood from toxic waste products. " Des personnes/' says Bouchard, 

 " qui avaient vecu pendant des annees avec la diarrhee en con- 

 servant les apparences d'une sante parfaite ont vu disparaitre en 

 meme temps leur diarrhee et leur sante." It is certain that the 

 unquestionable therapeutic value of purgative waters can only be 

 explained on the assumption that they excite the excretory 

 functions of the intestine, on which the katabolic products 

 accumulated in the tissues and blood are rapidly expelled through 

 the mucous membrane of the intestine. 



The toxicity of faecal extracts can easily be demonstrated by 

 intravenous injection. An aqueous extract of faeces injected into 

 the veins of a rabbit causes exhaustion, diarrhoea, and other 

 serious symptoms premonitory of death. An alcoholic extract is 

 toxic even in small doses. According to Bouchard, alcoholic 

 extract of 17 grms. faeces causes the death of the rabbit with 

 strong convulsions. 



These experiments were repeated and more exactly described 

 by Arloing and Nicolas, with both aqueous and alcoholic faecal 

 extracts injected into the jugular vein of rabbits. The toxicity of 

 these extracts varies ; but the alcoholic is always twice as toxic 

 as the watery extract. The principal symptoms of intoxication 

 are convulsions, diarrhoea, hypothermia. Death sometimes occurs 

 rapidly, at other times slowly, sometimes after several days. In 

 the last case the animals become feverish 



We do not know to what substances the toxicity of the faeces 

 is due. In 1882 Bouchard extracted from the faeces substances 

 which exhibit characters common to the alkaloids (Selmi's 

 ptomaines). Some of these were soluble in ether, others in alcohol. 

 He failed, however, to extract a sufficient quantity to produce 

 intoxication of the animal. In one case he succeeded in extract- 

 ing 15 grms. per kilo, faecal matter. He regarded the alkaloids 

 of the faeces as the source of all the alkaloids in the body, and 

 assumed a certain parallelism between the alkaloids of the faeces 

 and those of the urine, in which, however, they are always present 

 in a less amount. If these data had been confirmed they would 

 have been of great importance ; but later analysis carried out by 

 accurate technical methods gave only negative results. Selmi's 

 ptomaines were absent not only in normal urine and faeces, but also 

 in the excreta of various diseases, excepting typhus, cholera, 

 dysentery diseases due to specific bacteria, which develop toxic 

 alkaloids as products of their metabolism. 



