PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF METALLIC SALTS. 237 
discharge from the nose was not diminished. In a few instances 
it had no influence at all. 
There needs not to be any fear of the poisonous property of the 
mercury on the economy of the horse in the employment of it as 
a therapeutic agent. It has only been by the use of 120 grains 
of the ointment daily for more than a month that we have been 
enabled to destroy the animal. These facts appear to deserve 
considerable attention.- — Rec. de Med. Vet., Sep . 1840. 
On the Physical Effects of Metallic Salts on the 
Li ving and Dead Tissues. 
By Professor' Lassaigne, Alfort. 
The physical effects which a great number of metallic salts 
produce on the living and dead tissues have been long since 
proved by numerous experiments, and it is on the knowledge of 
this that the usage of them has been established, at the present 
day, in medicine and surgery; whether as internal or external 
medicaments. 
Of the chemical reactions which take place between these 
bodies, we are either entirely ignorant, or our supposed know- 
ledge of them is founded more on analogies than on positive and 
conclusive facts; therefore it is that M. Lassaigne, Professor of 
Medical Chemistry and Pharmacy at the Veterinary School at 
Alfort, has devoted the past year to the study of this, not less 
interesting with reference to organic chemistry than physiology 
and medicine. 
After a course of experiments on the albumen which exists so 
plentifully in all the fluids contained in the animal frame, and in 
the greater part of the tissues of the organs, M. Lassaigne has 
demonstrated, contrary to the general opinion, that all the metal- 
lic salts may become united to these organic principles, without 
undergoing any decomposition. He has recognized that the 
compounds which result possess new properties which he has 
described in detail in a Memoir presented to the Academy of 
Sciences. The characters which distinguish them permit him 
to explain their absorption in the economy, and their presence 
in the different fluids with which they have been brought into 
contact during life. The elements of these compounds appear 
to be united in definite proportions, as are observed in the com- 
bination of inorganic bodies or minerals. 
VOL. XIV. H h 
