Medical Litei'ahu'C. 
m 
given, there will be superadded a fluttering sensation in the cardiac 
region ; slight delirium, manifested by picking and other motions of the 
hands and fingers in the air, as if they were in contact with real objects ; 
muttering and smiling; staggering, or complete inability to walk. 
The same symptoms, including acceleratio7i of the pulse, follow the 
administration of belladonna or its active principle by the alimentary 
canal. . . . It is clear, first, that belladonna has no action on the 
vagus nerve ; and secondly, that its effects are precisely the same, whether 
it be administered by the skin or by the stomach. 
. . . Thie kidneys are active in the elimination of atropia from the 
minute when it enters the blood until it is entirely removed from the 
system. In the case of a full medicinal dose, about two hours arc 
required for this purpose. Availing myself of its dilating action upon 
the eye, I have repeatedly demonstrated the presence of atropia in the 
urines of different individuals, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty minutes 
after the subcutaneous injection of the forty-eighth and even the ninety- 
sixth of a grain of sulphate of atropia. ... In ten patients, the 
urines secreted immediately before and during the operation of the medi- 
cine were analyzed. The result was uniform. During the action of the 
belladonna, the urea and the sulphates and phosphates were increased; 
and, as a rule, the chlorine was proportionately diminished. The increase 
of the urea was dispiiop^rtionate to, and considerably less than, that of 
the phosphates and sulphatesT'N^ 
. . . Atropia, as we have se^, in the true sense of the word a 
diuretic, and a more powerful one ' ' ^ ^ther that v 
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