756 HENRY G. BARBOUR 



hens fed for months on small quantities of corrosive sublimate. Among 

 others Bieganski demonstrated similar effects in man. 



Total Metabolism. The total metabolism is not affected in fasting 

 rabbits (Schroeder). 



Protein Metabolism. Bock and others found the nitrogen metabolism 

 unaltered in syphilitics treated with mercury. Noel Paton observed a 

 slightly increased nitrogen excretion in a dog. Urea and uric acid may 

 also be increased after small doses. Schroeder and others have observed 

 some nitrogen retention, presumably of nephritic origin, for the blood 

 urea content is increased under such conditions. 



Carbohydrate Metabolism. Glycosuria was found by Schroeder and 

 almost constantly by many others. Hyperglycemia was not found by 

 Graf or Kissel in spite of the rapid disappearance of liver glycogen. 

 Franck finally showed the glycosuria to be of renal origin. Lactic acid 

 has not been demonstrated in the urine. 



Fat Metabolism. Fatty infiltration of various organs is frequently 

 seen. 



Mineral Metabolism. Decalcification, of bones with cachexia and 

 anemia are typical of chronic poisoning. 



Prevost, like others, found that mercury may produce calcium de- 

 posits in the kidneys, and associated them with a diminution in bone 

 calcium. 



Acid-Alkali Metabolism. Hans Meyer first showed that the blood 

 alkalinity may be diminished, and MacNider(fc) found an acid intoxica- 

 tion in cases of delayed kidney injury. 



Water Metabolism. Jendrassik, the modern discoverer of calomel 

 diuresis, recommended 0.2 gram doses four times a day. In cardiac 

 dropsies seven to eight liters of urine were thus obtained daily with a con- 

 siderable washing out of urea and chlorids. 



Fleckseder(fr) found that all mercury compounds by all methods of ad- 

 ministration produce a diuretic effect in rabbits. He believes that mercury 

 lessens the absorption of water from the small intestines ; correspondingly 

 larger amounts of water being absorbed from the colon, diuresis is more 

 readily brought about. This does not explain calomel action in cardiac 

 dropsies. The blood of rabbits becomes hydremic, but in man the hydremia 

 seems to occur only with the dropsies. Healthy individuals under mercury 

 may exhibit a concentrated blood associated with diarrhea. 



Pleuritic exudates are not influenced by calomel. 



Body Temperature. Poisoning from inhalation of mercury vapor is 

 accompanied by a febrile reaction (Carpenter and Benedict). Further- 

 more fever generally accompanies the stomatitis or skin eruptions of mer- 

 cury poisoning, while in collapse there is of course a profound temperature 

 fall. 



