362 BACTERIAL POISdNS. 



forerunner of eclampsia. These experiments have been 

 confirmed by Leubuscher and Zeichen. 



Falck injected into both sound and nephrotomized ani- 

 mals fresh urine, urine and the ferment of Muscttlus and 

 Lea, and urine which had undergone spontaneous decom- 

 position, without producing any symptoms which were 

 comparable with those observed in uraemia. However, he 

 did find that if a few drops of an infusion of putrid flesh 

 were added to the urine before injection all the typical 

 symptoms of uraemia were induced. That the infusion of 

 putrid flesh alone had no effect was also demonstrated. 

 This would lead us to believe that some ferment in the 

 infusion converts some constituent of the urine into a 

 highly poisonous body. In this connection attention may 

 be called to the fact that creatine may be converted by the 

 action of certain germs into methyl -guanidine, which pro- 

 duces convulsions. Whether such conversion occurs in 

 uraemia or not, and if it does what the cause of it is, are 

 questions which must be left for future investigations to 

 decide. It would be well for someone to test the brain 

 and blood of a person who has died in uraemic convulsions 

 for methyl-guanidine. 



That there is a marked disturbance of tissue metabolism 

 caused by the inhalation of vitiated air has been shown by 

 Araki. In the urine of animals rendered unconscious by 

 being kept in a confined space this experimenter found 

 albumin, sugar, and lactic acid. If the animals had been 

 kept without food for some days before being subjected to 

 this experiment albumin and lactic acid were found, but 

 no sugar appeared. This was undoubtedly due to the fact 

 that the glycogen of the body had been exhausted by the 

 fasting. Identical results were observed in animals which 

 were poisoned with carbon monoxide. Dogs which were 

 poisoned with curare, and in which the respiratory move- 

 ments were maintained artificially, secreted very little 

 urine ; but the blood was found to contain considerable 

 quantities of sugar and lactic acid. The urine of frogs in 

 which the respiration was retarded by the production of 

 tetanus Avith strychnine secreted urine containing sugar and 



