78 PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY IN MEDICINE. 



those therapeutic agents that have a multiplicity of 

 effects. Besides its specific relation to the metabolism 

 of the thyroid gland, it is employed for its power of 

 lowering blood-pressure in arteriosclerosis and for its 

 absorptive effect upon the most varied products of chronic 

 inflammation, more especially the late forms of syphilis. 

 Readily as one can recognize in these general consid- 

 erations how the effects of the ions of a salt are independent 

 of each other, and how there exists an antagonism between 

 cations and anions, the grouping given above suggests 

 something which leads us still further. Even if we pro- 

 ceed most carefully in the extension of our analogy, it 

 must be apparent to every one that the sulphocyanate 

 ion, which antagonizes precipitation most powerfully, 

 constitutes the end member of a series of pharmaco- 

 logically most active substances, and so the question 

 arises whether this ion does not possess some peculiar 

 medicinal effect. The direction in which such an effect 

 is to be sought is also indicated by the position of this 

 ion in our scale. 



III. 



So far as I know, there exist no therapeutic experi- 

 ments on sulphocyanate compounds. At any rate, 

 nothing definite can be found in large handbooks on 

 therapy or in very complete text-books on pharmacology. 

 The role of sulphocyanate in metabolism has absorbed 

 the attention of many investigators since its discovery 

 as a normal constituent of the saliva by TREVIRANUS, 

 TIEDEMANN and GMEITN. As GSCHEIDLEN and MUNK 

 discovered independency of each other, sulphocyanate 



