230 INOEGANIC AGENTS 



small doses, vomiting and diarrhcea in large quantities ; . 

 ■while toxic amounts are followed by vomiting (in carnivora), 

 serous or bloody purging, great depression of the cir- 

 culation and respiration, muscular weakness, collapse and 

 death. 



Uneasiness, nausea, colic and death have been reported 

 in horses only after enormous doses of tartar emetic by the 

 mouth. The horse and ruminants are comparatively insus- 

 ceptible to the action of tartar emetic. The writer has 

 observed a cow, however, in which nausea and actual vomi- 

 tion occurred, following a therapeutic dose of kermes 

 mineral in electuary. 



Tartar emetic is a powerful but slowly acting emetic 

 (attended with a good deal of nausea) in dogs. Tartar 

 emetic has been recovered in the first vomitus following its 

 intravenous injection. It also ex23els the contents of a 

 bladder artificially replacing the norm'al stomach. These 

 results go to show that tartar emetic acts both as a specific 

 emetic upon the vomiting centre, and locally as a specific 

 irritant and an emetic upon the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach. Tartar emetic is eliminated in great part by the 

 mucous membrane of the alimentary canal. 



Circulation. — The principal action of antimony is 

 exerted upon the heart and vessels. The heart muscle is 

 weakened and vascular tension markedly lowered by large 

 doses of tartar emetic. This wtion depends upon the in- 

 fluence of antimony on the cardiac muscle itself, and 

 possibly upon the vagus nerve-endings in the heart. Vascular 

 tension is lowered through depression of the heart and of 

 the peripheral vasomotor nerves or muscle of the vessel walls. 

 ^Yhether the vasomotor centre is also depressed is uncertain. 

 The pulse is reduced in force and frequency by large doses 

 of tartar emetic. Following lethal amounts, the heart be- 

 comes flabby and relaxed, and death occurs in diastolic arrest. 

 The preceding remarks apply only to the action of tartar 

 emetic upon carnivora. 



Antimony was formerly a very popular drug when 



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