250 PROFESSOR RUTHERFORD ON THE 
chloric acid, and a solution of alkaline chlorides. It would clearly be more 
conclusive if we could substitute direct experiment for mere inference. We 
are in a position to do this. 
As regards the dog, it is evident that the only link wanting to complete our 
chain of evidence is, that we should place the calomel in the stomach instead of 
the duodenum, and thus render the case analogous to that of the human subject 
as regards the administration of this drug. With regard to the cases of calomel, 
we did indeed seriously think for a time that the negative effect of the calomel 
on the liver might possibly have been due to the circumstance, that the drug 
was introduced directly into the duodenum, and thus escaped the action of the 
gastric juice. 
Experiment 78¥.—Into the stomach of a curarised dog, that had fasted the 
usual time, we injected 5 grains of calomel in water. The injection was made 
with a fine syringe, through the gastric wall, in order that the whole of it might 
certainly reach the interior of the viscus. Injection through an cesophagus 
tube was avoided, because a substance so insoluble as calomel would certainly 
have clung to the interior of the tube, and would thus have been partly lost. 
The result of the experiment was entirely negative, both as regards the 
liver and the intestinal glands. This was readily explained by the fact, that at 
the necropsy the calomel was found apparently unchanged, enveloped in the 
mucus of the stomach. The saliva of the dog is peculiar in containing a very 
large quantity of mucin. As previously stated (p. 140), the accumulation of this 
viscous saliva in the stomach during fasting is calculated so seriously to interfere 
with absorption, that we, on this account, in nearly all these experiments, 
injected the various drugs directly into the duodenum. 
We would not however have attempted the preceding experiment had we 
at the moment recollected that the question at issue had already received a 
satisfactory answer from the previous experiments of KOLLIKER and MULLER, 
Scott, and BenNer?’s Committee. In those experiments the calomel was given 
by the mouth in the usual way, and the animals had their usual diet. very 
opportunity was therefore afforded for a transformation of the calomel into 
mercuric chloride—probably indeed a better opportunity than is afforded in the 
human subject, for the gastric juice of the dog is—as previously stated, p. 242 
—more acid than that of man, and yet we find that the action of the calomel, 
when placed in the stomach of the dog, was just the same as when introduced 
directly into the duodenum. We have proved that 34, grain corrosive sublimate 
with 1 grain of calomel when placed in the duodenum (Experiment 78D) can 
powerfully stimulate the liver of the dog, but we find no reason for enter- 
taining the idea that the amount of mercuric chloride produced by the gastric 
juice from 5 grains of calomel has any appreciable effect on the liver, for in 
one of the experiments for BENNEeT?T’s Committee the amount of calomel placed 
