376 COLLOIDS IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



G. IZAR reaches the conclusion that "the regular use of the injections 

 shortens the course of the infection and seems to make it more favor- 

 able." 



It was mentioned at the outset that the number of infectious 

 diseases in which silver hydrosols as well as other metal hydrosols 

 were employed is very great, and the opinions of the results very 

 divergent; silver hydrosol, and at times platinum-hydrosol, have been 

 employed in inflammatory rheumatism and erysipelas, in typhoid 

 and para-typhoid, in appendicitis, furunculosis, phlegmons, anthrax, 

 cerebrospinal meningitis, and scarlatina, dysentery and diphtheria, 

 etc. As in the case of the diseases previously described, it affects 

 the temperature curve though at times only temporarily, and there 

 is frequently no influence on the patients subjectively. 



I have not as yet discovered in the literature any published cases 

 of the use of silver hydrosols in tuberculosis; if they exist they are 

 probably isolated instances. The reader may well get the impression 

 that there do not exist for most diseases such thorough studies as G. 

 IZAR'S * 3 in pneumonia, and that on this account th^ records of metal 

 hydrosol therapy are incomplete. 



'"'' * 

 Mercury. 



Mercury has been used for centuries in syphilis. Since metallic 

 mercury as such, as well as in the very finely emulsified form of blue 

 ointment, is absorbed by the organism, there is no reason for expecting 

 a very marked difference to result from the colloidal solution. 



The chemical firm of VON HEYDEN manufacture a mercury 

 hydrosol called Hyrgolum and a mercurous chlorid hydrosol called 

 Calomelol, which may also be employed for inunctions. 



Sulphur. 



For some time a water-soluble sulphur hydrosol has been intro- 

 duced into medicine and employed in skin diseases. Its action 

 depends on the method of introduction since sulphur is reduced to 

 the highly toxic hydrogen sulphid in the organism. The lethal dose 

 for a rabbit weighing 1 kilo, according to L. SABBATANI, is 0.0066 gm. 

 of colloidal sulphur intravenously (death is immediate) , whereas death 

 occurs only after several hours when 0.25 gm. is introduced into the 

 alimentary tract. The action also depends on the kind of animal ; dogs 

 are much less sensitive to sulphur than other experimental animals. 



The reduction and consequently the toxicity depends on the physi- 

 cal condition; it is most intense in colloidal, less in amorphous, and 

 least in crystalline sulphur. Moreover the toxicity is directly pro* 



