224 PROFESSOR RUTHERFORD ON THE 
within half-an-hour. Owing to its certain and speedy action, it has been 
repeatedly used in the later experiments merely to furnish an effect which 
might be readily compared with that produced by some other substance. 
Table XX XIII. gives the coefficients of bile secretion under its influence. 
TABLE XX XIII. 
Secretion of Bile per Kilo- 
| gramme of Body-weight 
| per hour. 
| | “a1 iloo 
| Sodium Salicylate. Total Dose in Grains, ba eee ae | 
Before. After. ) 
| Experiment 73, F 20 1:00 0-178 cc. | 0:565 ce. 
- 54, : 25 1:55 2:260 ce. 0°664 ce. 
. 65, : 20 2°15 0329 ce. | 0:890ice 
Result of Experiments with Sodium Salicylate.—It is a very powerful hepatic 
stimulant in the dog. Its slight action on the intestine is probably the reason 
why its effect on the human liver has passed unobserved by the physician. We 
have given to a man 3() grains of sodium salicylate at night, and next morning 
a purely intestinal stimulant, such as magnesium sulphate, and we feel con- 
vinced that there was an increased discharge of bile. We commend this point 
to the attention of physicians. 
ACTION OF AMMONIUM PHOSPHATE AND OF TANNIC ACID. 
The similar effects produced on the liver by the sodium and ammonium salts 
of salicylic acid, led us to think again of the stimulating effect of sodium 
phosphate, and induced us to test the action of ammonium phosphate. It is 
employed in cases of chronic gout, and in urinary affections where uric acid 
calculi exist or threaten. Nothing has been hitherto known regarding its 
action on the liver, probably because it is not an intestinal stimulant ; and, 
therefore, the increased secretion of bile—which it probably induces in man as 
it certainly does in the dog—has passed unobserved. The dose for a man 
is from 5 to 20 grains. 
The first experiment with this substance yielded a negative result ; but it 
has been thought right to discard it, because the ammonium phosphate was 
injected after liquor bismuthi into the same part of the intestinal canal. 
Experiment 65. Dog that had fasted seventeen hours. Weight 9:7 kilo- 
