112 



THE AMEKICAN MONTHLY 



m 



[June, ■ 



■nnf«i/»o ■ 



sented a singular phenomenon. 

 Under the power used, these tubes 

 appeared blind, but a little globule 

 of mercury lay upon the surface of 

 the web, at the outer end of one of 

 the tubes. Watching this globule 

 intently for ten minutes, it suddenly 

 increased in size and the tube col- 

 lapsed, having emptied its mercurial 

 contents outward. The globule thus 

 formed was twice as large as the 

 characteristic blue-mass globule, and 

 was easily removed from the web 

 by a canal's-hair pencil. The other 

 tube was more curved, and at its 

 outer end had two such globules, 

 both of which increased slowly in 

 size, and in half an hour had grown 

 very large, at the expense of the 

 tubular contents, the tube disap- 

 pearing as did the first one. IS^o where 

 could I see anything like foreign 

 particles circulating in the blood. 

 The white and red blood-corpuscles 

 were distinctly visible, but in one 

 capillary I found a small, dark par- 

 ticle gradually accumulating simi- 

 lar particles near it ; these I suspected 

 were minute mercury-globules ; they 

 accumulated against the current, and 

 the blood passed around them freely ; 

 suddenly the down stream end of 

 the mass broke away and appa- 

 rently washed away in the blood, 

 out of sight. This was repeated 

 several times while the mass, in 

 this way, was proceeding up stream. 

 While exchanging objectives for a 

 higher power, the capillary cleared 

 up. In one vein I observed plainly 

 a large globule of mercury lying 

 motionless, while the blood-corpus- 

 cles beat against it with as little 

 effect as water would have against 

 a great stone in a brook ; the cor- 

 puscles changed positions to pass it 

 in the vessel, but slid by as rapidly 

 as ever. Some of the exuded mer- 

 cury-globules on the web, enabled 

 me to obtain good comparative 

 measurements. Six of these me- 



tallic spheres lay on the surface, 

 just over one of the smallest capil- 

 laries. The six together measured 

 the diamether of the capillary, and 

 could easily have passed through this 

 blood vessel abreast. 



I repeated the experiment on a 

 smaller frog by anointing the chin, 

 axillee and thorax with Squibb's 

 oleate of mercury, with the same 

 result, only the large sized globules 

 were not so numerous. To a third 

 (large sized) frog I gave ten grains 

 of blue mass, and about as much 

 blue ointment. I kept him in a 

 glass jar, to be sure he did not eject 

 the pellets, and in this case, twenty- 

 four hours after, found the lymph- 

 atic sacs engorged, but blood cir- 

 culation undisturbed. In all the 

 frogs so treated, where unavoidable 

 lacerations of their feet had occur- 

 red in manipulating, there oozed 

 from the torn edges, minute glo- 

 bules of mercury. The last frog 

 shed his skin in three days after 

 the dose, but otherwise none of 

 them underwent any apparent 

 change in health or vigor. The 

 skin I think must have afforded 

 the main means of exit for the 

 metal. There is not a fragment, 

 however small, of this discarded 

 cuticle which does not exhibit 

 plainly the metallic globules at- 

 tached to it in great numbers ; many 

 hundred slides may be mounted 

 with the skin from this frog alone, 

 and every slide will reveal fifty or 

 more globules. In the dissecting 

 room of the Bennett Eclectic Col- 

 lege of this city, a cadaver was ex- 

 hibited to the students, the skin of 

 which was so covered with mercury 

 that an ordinary pocket magnifier 

 revealed the globules in countless 

 numbers. Dissecting the frog last 

 mentioned, I found the stomach 

 coated with the globules, but, ten 

 days having elapsed since the dose, 

 no mercury was found between the 



