Magnesium Sulphate and Sodium Oxalate. 



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The combined effect of magnesium sulphate and sodium oxalate 



upon rabbits. 



By F. L. Gates and S. J. Meltzer. 



[From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the 

 Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.] 



Our communication is concerned not with the prolonged, but 

 with the immediate effect of the salts under discussion. The 

 acute death of a rabbit which may occur within one hour or two 

 after a subcutaneous injection of twenty-five or thirty centigrams 

 of sodium oxalate per kilogram body-weight, is often preceded by a 

 series of convulsions which may last fifteen to twenty minutes 

 and which evidently are not due to asphyxia. Sublethal doses of 

 ten or fifteen centigrams, which occasionally may cause some 

 hypersensitiveness, are not followed by any serious symptoms. 

 On the other hand death following subcutaneous injections of 

 magnesium sulphate is ushered in, according to Meltzer and Auer, 

 by paralysis without convulsions. Two grams of the salt (+ crys- 

 talline water) is a surely fatal dose; one gram and a half per kilo 

 body-weight usually causes anesthesia and paralysis followed by 

 recovery. Doses of less than one gram per kilo body-weight may 

 cause a more or less definite state of drowsiness and weakness which 

 is generally of short duration only. In no case of magnesium 

 poisoning are the narcotic and paralytic symptoms complicated 

 by convulsions or hyperesthesia. 



The results which we have obtained in experiments with the 

 simultaneous injections of both salts can be stated briefly as 

 follows. Simultaneous injections of small doses of magnesium 

 sulphate and sodium oxalate in separate parts of the animal body 

 seem to produce an effect eqiial to that of a larger dose of magnesium 

 sulphate alone. When, for instance, twelve or fifteen centigrams 

 (per kilo body-weight) of sodium oxalate are injected subcutane- 

 ously into one side of the rabbit and eight or nine decigrams (per 

 kilo body-weight) of magnesium sulphate are injected into the 

 other side, the result is the development of such a degree of 



