CHAPTER XVIII. 

 THE ALIMENTARY TRACT AS AN EXCRETORY SYSTEM. 



i. General Clinical and Experimental Considerations. 



Practical medicine has for a long time recognized empirically 

 the function of the alimentary tract as an organ of excretion. 

 As an example we need only cite the practice of purgation 

 in cases of renal disease, in which the effort is made to carry 

 off the poisonous metabolic products of the body through 

 the intestinal tract. The beneficial effects following this 

 therapeutic procedure are illustrated in the clinical experi- 

 ences of every day. 



The scientific basis of this practice has not as yet been 

 definitely established through experiment. It is true that 

 there exist a large number of isolated facts, which show that 

 various poisons, no matter how introduced into the living 

 organism, are eliminated through the alimen tary tract. Every 

 physician is acquainted with the elimination of the iodides 

 through the salivary glands after introduction of these salts 

 into the stomach; l with the elimination of arsenic and mor- 

 phin 2 through the stomach, even when these substances 

 do not enter the organism through the intestinal tract, 

 and with the excretion of iron compounds through the small 

 intestine. MENDEL and TnACHER 3 have recently collected a 



^ENZOLDT and FABER: Berliner klin. Wochenschr., 1882, XIX, 

 p. 363. 



2 KUNKEL: Handbuch d. Toxikologie, 1901, p. 54. 



3 MENDEL and THACHEB: American Journal of Physiology, 1904, 

 XI, p. 5. 



311 



