AND ON THE INTRODUCTION OF DECOMPONENTS INTO THE BLADDER. 15 
tions of borate of soda on uric acid ; and that, on the authority of Wetzlar, he had 
stated that uric acid is soluble in weak solutions of carbonate of potash*. 
The preceding experiments being apparently conclusive as to the decomposing 
effect of certain salts of lead on phosphatic calculi, out of the body ; the next point 
to he determined was the effect likely to be produced by the introduction of their 
solutions into the living bladder. They had been found, on repeated trial, inoffensive 
to the eye and to the urethra ; they are constantly applied to abraded and inflamed 
surfaces, as well as used internally, with the greatest advantage : and, although some of 
these salts, by long-continued absorption, are apt to produce a train of specific morbid 
symptoms, it has been stated by physicians of eminence, that lead acts deleteriously 
only when imbibed in the shape of a carbonate ; that when the acetate appears to 
produce colica pictonum, it does so from being converted, after its reception into the 
body., into a carbonate ; and furthermore, that this conversion may he avoided by 
super-acidulation, the salt may then be administered with perfect safety in large and 
efficient quantities. My observations tend to prove, that this super-acidulation is 
essential to the due action of the decomposing fluids I propose. Whatever salt of lead 
may be employed must be moistened with a small quantity of its own proper acid, or 
a few drops of pure acetic acid, previous to the addition of water. In a chemical 
as well as therapeutical point of view this is essential: — 1st, it secures the perfect 
solution of the salt and its consequent activity as a decomponent; 2nd, the super- 
addition of acid secures against the formation of any of the deleterious carbonate. 
In order, however, that I might be perfectly satisfied as to the comparatively in- 
nocuous qualities of the before-named salts, I undertook a series of experiments with 
them on sheep ; introducing the fluids into the bladder daily, for several weeks con- 
secutively. and having the animals killed at different periods during the investiga- 
tion, In none of the sheep experimented on, were untoward symptoms excited, 
either general or local. 
It may be objected, that the membrane lining the viscera of graminivorous animals 
is less susceptible than that which performs the same office in man ; but as, on trial, 
liquids which irritate and inflame the human organs, act in the same way, and with 
the same rapidity on those of the sheep, I see no reason to believe that the one is 
less susceptible of such impressions than the other. Experiments of a personal na- 
ture, not necessary to particularize, were also resorted to, and contributed to the 
conviction, that no evil could accrue from the continued introduction of saturnine 
solutions into the bladder')'-. The following cases not only prove this fact, but 
* “ Quand la liqueur ne contient qu’un demi pour cent de carbonate alcalin, l’acide urique s’y dissout assez 
rapidement.” Berzelius, Traite de Chimie. 
f I refrain, for obvious reasons, from entering into particulars as to the general effect of solutions of the 
salts of lead in various morbid states of the bladder ; although I may be allowed perhaps to direct attention to 
the property these salts possess of coagulating mucus, — a property they do not fail to exercise on the secretion 
from the living organ, independently of their decomponent effects on the phosphate of lime which that secre- 
