STOMACHIC ABSORPTION. 
101 
been several times evacuated, was promptly affected by the 
test. At four o’clock in the afternoon of the same day, the 
animal having fasted for three days, we gave him 60 grammes 
more of the cyanine, dissolved in three pints of water; ten 
minutes afterwards he voided his urine loaded enough ; the 
blood taken from the jugular vein a quarter of an hour after the 
taking of the cyanine of potassium, afforded no action with 
sulphate of iron ; the other, extracted after two hours and a 
half, at five and at seven o’clock in the evening, treated by 
the same test, left us only with doubts as to the presence of 
the salt ; on the contrary, the urine invariably offered most 
sensible proofs of its presence. This horse, after having 
shown symptoms of acute gastro-enteritic inflammation, was 
destroyed at eight o’clock in the morning. We found no cya- 
nine of iron and potass, save in the middle of the caecum, of 
the larger colon, and in the urine contained in the bladder 
and kidneys. The blood everywhere was black and diffluent, 
and particularly through the abdominal venous system. 
From these and other similar experiments, the results led 
M. Prange to the following 
General Conclusions. — 1 . Ligature of the oesophagus 
produces prompt augmentation and abundance of muco-sali- 
vary secretion, accompanied by energetic and reiterated efforts 
of deglutition, which diminish, while hyper-secretion ceases : 
phenomena which we believe ascribable to rare and transient 
nervous diseases. 
2. Ligature of the pylorus in the horse offers no opposi- 
tion to stomach absorption, 
3. The promptitude and abundance with which certain in- 
gesta are detected in the urine, w 7 hen the stomach is in 
certain conditions, is a proof to us of its absorbent function, 
since forty-eight hours sometimes suffice to cause to disap- 
pear from the organ every trace of their pre-existence. 
4. Empoisonment does not take place after taking a large 
dose of the aqueous extract of nux vomica, so long as the 
pylorus remains tied ; while some minutes after the removal 
of the ligature, should it have been on for some hours, convul- 
sive movements become manifest, a circumstance in the 
administration which affords reason for believing that the 
matters eliminated pass through the urinary passages without 
being detectible throughout the course of the circulation. 
5. The channel of communication between the intestinal 
tube and the right kidney, shown by ligature of the vena 
portae, does not appear to us sufficient to afford an explana- 
tion of the fact, perhaps on account of its not being found 
sufficiently straight, save only in the grave case of sangui- 
