420 WALLACE LARKIN CHANDLER 
less. At 5 o’clock it showed tremors, and about an hour later its hind 
extremities were paralyzed. On the following morning it was found dead 
and rigid. A post-mortem examination showed the following: The 
blood was about normal, the cells being little altered, but the blood 
plasma contained fine, oily droplets which were recognized to be nitro- 
benzene. The meninges were congested, the veins turgid, the tongue 
and mucosae violet in color, and there was a stasis of the blood in the 
capillaries. The heart was dilated and filled with viscous blood, but there 
were no.clots. The authors claim to have found anilin in some of the 
organs and in the blood, as well as nitrobenzene. They state that they 
had tested the nitrobenzene for the presence of anilin just prior to the 
experiments and had not found a single trace. Hence they conclude that 
their original assumption was correct — that nitrobenzene may be con- 
verted into anilin in the living body of an animal. 
In another experiment these investigators caused a young dog to ingest 
a daily dose of from two to three grams of the drug for a period of sixteen 
days. They then killed the dog. They found no trace of anilin in any 
of the organs except the spleen and the liver. 
From these experiments Ollivier and Bergeron draw the following con- 
clusions: (1) that death due to nitrobenzene poisoning is delayed as 
compared with death due to an equal dose of anilin; (2) that nitrobenzene 
given in small daily doses is eliminated in part as such, and changed in 
part to anilin, which accumulates in the spleen and liver; (3) that the drug 
is in time eliminated as nitrobenzene and anilin, and is not changed into 
picric acid; (4) that animals poisoned by nitrobenzene die with symptoms 
of asphyxiation; (5) that the symptoms preceding death are similar to 
those in the case of anilin poisoning, except that the animal exhibits 
tremors, not convulsions of the whole body as in the case of anilin poison- 
ing; (6) that nitrobenzene does not appear to cause any direct alteration 
of the blood, the muscles, the heart, the nerves, or other organs.® 
In a further experiment with nitrobenzene, these authors placed guinea 
pigs, cats, and other small animals under a bell jar and introduced air 
saturated with the vapor of nitrobenzene, allowing a small opening for 
ventilation. Under these conditions they were able to produce death in 
from two to five hours, death bemg preceded by characteristic symptoms 
such as staggering, tremors, and paralysis of the hind legs. 
8 The staining of nerve cells by the Nissl] method was not developed until 1885. 
