10 INFLUENCE OF BORAX AND 



particular dog considerable difficulty was experienced in in- 

 ducing the animal to take it. At first the borax was simply 

 mixed with the food, but its presence was quickly detected 

 and the food refused, although it was eventually coaxed 

 down, but with some difficulty. After this first day the 

 borax was given in capsules, as already stated, and no further 

 difficulty of this sort was experienced. Three times during 

 the borax period, however, the animal was nauseated and 

 vomited a portion of the food, thus showing that this quan- 

 tity of borax was sufficient to disturb the physiological equi- 

 librium of the animal. The vomited matter was eventually 

 eaten, however, later in the day, so that this occurrence did 

 not disturb the validity of the experiment. It will be remem- 

 bered that in Gruber's experiment with a much larger dog 

 (39 kilos) 20 grams of borax likewise caused vomiting. In 

 his experiment, however, the entire dose of borax was taken 

 at one time, while in our case, 2.5 grams were given in the 

 morning and a like quantity at night. Hence, taking into 

 account the weight of the dog, it might perhaps be argued 

 that 0.25 gram of borax to 1 kilo of body-weight will pro- 

 duce vomiting. This, however, is very questionable, for in 

 the above experiment the dog did not vomit until the after- 

 noon of December 5, when she had already taken 12.5 grams 

 of borax. In other words, the animal was without doubt 

 suffering in part from the cumulative action of the salt. 

 Thus, there was a slight attack of vomiting again on the 

 fifth day (December 7) and a final attack on the eighth day 

 (December 10). During the after period of nine days the 

 animal was perfectly normal, and at the close of the period, 

 to again test the action of the borax, 5 grams were given at 

 one time shortly after the morning meal. Forty-five minutes 

 afterwards the animal vomited, and this occurred three times 

 during the forenoon. We are inclined to lay particular em- 

 phasis upon this action of the borax because it tends to show 

 that in this first experiment the dosage of borax through the 

 nine days' period was as large as it well could be for this 

 particular animal without vitiating the experiment, and that 



