Arsenic Eating, &c. 209 
Art. XX.—Jnjluence of Arsenious Acid upon the Waste of the 
ral e 
Animal Tissu 
ACCORDING to experiments made by Prof. Schmidt and Dr. 
Stuerzwage of Dorpat,* arsenious acid when introduced into the 
circulation, occasions a considerable diminution of the ordinary 
sues. 
This decrease, which amounts to from twenty to forty per cent, 
occurs even after the administration of very small doses; mor 
rapidly if the acid is injected directly into the veins ; more slowly, 
yet with equal intensity, if absorbed from the intestines. The 
action is most striking in the case of fowls which neither vomit 
after injection of the arsenic nor reject their accustomed food; 
but even in cats which are subject to vomiting after the injection 
and must therefore be regarded as in a starving condition, the 
waste of the organism was diminished about twenty per cent after 
subtracting the decrease occasioned by the mere want of food. 
This fact satisfactorily explains the fattening of horses after 
smal] — of arsenious acid, a phenomenon well known to 
ers 
When larger doses of arsenious acid are given nervous symp- 
toms appear, which may be classified in two groups: spinal irrl- 
tation and paralysis. ‘I'o the first may be referred the vomiting, 
the accelerated respiration, the feeble pulse ; to the last, the in- 
clination to sleep, the weakness, and the retarded and labored 
es. ese accounts 
ave been time and again held up to ridicule by toxicologists,t 
icion by all scientific 
ly published and are 
~ peasantry of several Austrian province 
consequent! well known to the public. 
x e origin of these accounts 
* Journal fii : ; Ixxviii, p. 878. 
: Sir praktische Reena tnd ridin Journal, Feb. 1856, i, 709. A. 
i , 439. Or Taylor, in his 
Work On Poisons. London, Churchill, 1859, p. 91. 
AM. JOUR, SCLSECOND SERIES, Vor. XXX, No. 89.—SEPT., 1860. 
27 
