14 
Scientific Proceedings (40). 
The experiments would seem to indicate that there exists a 
coordination between the contractions of the ventricles and the 
auricles of such a nature that increased systole of the former 
causes an increased systole of the latter without any apparent 
change in venous pressure. 
To this condition is ascribed the cause of auricular cohyper- 
trophy. 
10 (535) 
The origin of convulsions and paralysis following" the intrave- 
nous injections of the hypertonic solution of 
sodium chloride. 
By DON E. JOSEPH and S. J. MELTZEE. 
[From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the 
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research^ 
In our experiments on the comparative toxicity of chlorides 
in which, among others, we studied the effects of intravenous 
injections of a molecular solution of sodium chloride in dogs we 
observed that after a certain quantity of the solution runs in, 
twitchings of the muscles of the entire body begin which gradually 
develop into more or less strong convulsions. Later these gradu- 
ally grow weaker and finally subside completely, at which time 
also the respiration stops. The heart continues to beat for several 
minutes longer. This chain of events is ascribed by pharma- 
cologists to the osmotic action of the hypertonic solution and is 
generally termed salt action. Loeb however demonstrated that 
sodium chloride exerts on the living tissue a chemical action also. 
In the paper embodying the above mentioned experiments we 
made the following two suggestions: (1) that the twitchings and 
convulsions are perhaps comparable to the twitching of frog 
muscles which develop when they are immersed in solutions of 
sodium chloride; the convulsive movements would be then of 
peripheral origin; (2) that the subsidence of the convulsions and 
the paralysis might be due to the curare-like action of the sodium 
chloride, i. e., to the paralysis of the motor nerve endings. 
In the present series of experiments we have tested these two 
hypotheses. The second hypothesis was tested by investigating 
