ACTION OF ANTIMONY AND POTASSIUM TARTRATE 215 



small doses, vomitiDg and diarrhoea in large quantities ; 

 while toxic amounts are followed by vomiting (in carnivora), 

 serous or bloody purging, great depression of the cir- 

 culation and respiration, muscular weakness, collapse and 

 death. 



Uneasiness, nausea, colic and death have been reported 

 in horses only after enormous doses of tartar emetic by the 

 mouth. The horse, and ruminants are comparatively insus- 

 ceptible to the action of tartar emetic. The writer has 

 observed a cow, however, in which nausea and actual vomi- 

 tion occurred, following a therapeutic dose of kermes 

 mineral in electuary. 



Tartar emetic is a powerful but slowly acting emetic 

 (attended with a good deal of nausea) in dogs. Tartar 

 emetic has been recovered in the first vomitus followiug its 

 intravenous injection. It also expels the contents of a 

 bladder artificially replacing the normal stomach. These 

 results go to show that tartar emetic acts both as a specific 

 emetic upon the vomiting centre, and locally as an emetic 

 upon the mucous membrane of the stomach. Tartar emetic 

 is eliminated in great part by the mucous membrane of the 

 alimentary canal. 



Circulation. — The principal action of antimony is exerted 

 upon the heart and vessels. The heart muscle is weakened 

 and vascular tension markedly lowered by large doses of 

 tartar emetic. This action depends upon the influence of 

 antimony on the cardiac muscle itself, and possibly upon the 

 vagus nerve-endings in the heart. Whether the action upon 

 vascular tension is due to a centric or peripheral vasomotor 

 depression, or is owing to relaxation of the vessel walls 

 themselves, remains undecided. The pulse is reduced in 

 force and frequency by large doses of tartar emetic. Follow- 

 ing lethal amounts, the heart becomes flabby and relaxed, 

 and death occurs in diastolic arrest. The preceding remarks 

 apply only to the action of tartar emetic upon carnivora. 



Antimony was formerly a very popular drug when 

 general depressant and depletant treatment was in vogue, 



