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COMPTE RENDU OF THE 
the abdominal digestive apparatus. Nevertheless, there are some 
particular departments of this apparatus in which they are most 
frequently observed ; such, for example, as the right bag of the 
stomach (the left one, protected as it is by its epithelium, easily 
resists even the corrosive action of the emetic), the larger curves 
of the colon, and particularly the coecum. This is accounted for 
by the functions of the organs we have specified, which retain 
matters taken into the system for a greater length of time than 
the others do, and are thus longer under the influence of their 
contact. 
Respiratory and circulatory apparatus . — The emetic, when 
administered through the digestive passages, does not confine its 
effects to the parts with which it comes in contact. Transported 
by intestinal absorption into the current of the circulation, it mingles 
with the blood, and for the time communicates to it new properties 
which manifest themselves to the observer in the important modifi- 
cations introduced into the organic functions. One of the most 
remarkable of the evident effects of the absorption of antimony is 
the abatement it invariably produces in the respiratory action. 
Messrs. Trousseau and Pidoux have already pointed out, in their 
“ Treatise on Therapeutics ,” this singular influence of the emetic 
on the respiration of the human being : “ We have seen,” they 
say, “ the number of respiratory movements so much decreased, 
that the patients submitted to the experiment have not breathed 
more than six times in a minute, while they had previously 
breathed sixteen, twenty, and twenty-four times in the same 
period ; and we could not have avoided feeling considerable unea- 
siness if we had not been re-assured by the good looks of the 
patient and his assurances of being no worse.” The emetic anti- 
mony likewise produces this effect upon the horse. We have 
seen animals in whom the respiration was so much slackened after 
the administration of the emetic tartar, that at times the flanks ap- 
peared motionless ; and as much attention was requisite to detect 
the commencement of the inspiration and expiration, and see the 
rising or lowering of the flank, as is necessary to follow the course 
of the second hand of a watch in its rapid circle of the minute. In 
those animals in which the phenomena produced by medicine are 
most intensely developed, the respiration was, in point of fact, but 
from two to three in a minute ; but these are rare cases. In ge- 
neral, the respiratory movements are diminished but one-third or 
one-half. We might cite a long series of observations in support 
of what we have half advanced ; we shall select one from our col- 
lection, wherein the influence of emetic tartar on the respiratory 
action is very strikingly demonstrated. Setting aside some slight 
shades of difference — some degrees of intensity in the sensible 
