28 
One hundred and one milligrams acetonitrile contains 64 milli- 
grams cyanogen; hence but 22.8 per cent of the cyanogen was 
excreted as sulphocyanate. The guinea pig on alcohol had converted 
1.84 times as much of the cyanogen of the nitrile into sulphocyanate 
as the normal. 
Thus in all of the above experiments the guinea pig which had 
been receiving alcohol excreted much more sulphocyanate after the 
administration of acetonitrile than did the normal; in most cases this 
excretion was about 1.7 times as great. The same results were 
obtained in a number of other experiments, the only exceptions being 
in a few experiments in which the alcohol guinea pig became very 
sick after the nitrile; in such cases there was either no greater excre- 
tion of sulphocyanate or there was a smaller excretion; but in all 
these experiments the guinea pig finally died, although death was 
sometimes delaved for a week. 
t. 
The increased formation of sulphocyanate found in the above 
experiments vfith alcohol admits of two possible explanations: (1) 
there may have been an increased formation of sulphocyanate due to 
an increased breaking up of the acetonitrile molecule; or (2) equal 
amounts of sulphocyanate may have been formed, but normal animals 
may have the power of destroAung more sulphocyanate. The latter 
supposition would be more in accord vfith the rather generally held 
view that oxidation processes are lowered by alcohol. 
On the other hand, recent experiments by Poliak indicate that nor- 
mal animals (dog, rabbit, man) destroy no sulphocyanate when this 
is administered as such.® My experiments on guinea pigs are in 
accord with Poliak’s results with other animals in showing that there 
is no great destruction of sulphocyanate when given subcutaneously; 
and no difference was observed between normal and alcohol animals 
in this respect. 
Fate of sulphocyanate in normal and alcohol guinea pigs . — My 
experiments vfith the subcutaneous injection of sodium sulphocyanate 
into guinea pigs were not very satisfactory, for although death did 
not result immediately there was usually much necrosis about the 
point of injection and death frequently occurred several days later. 
Examples of such experiments are as follows: The first experi- 
ment was upon one of the guinea pigs which had been used for a 
nitrile experiment (see last experiment above); the alcohol had been 
oHofmeister’s Beit., v. 2, p. 430. A similar result had been obtained by Salkowski 
(Virchow’s Archiv., v. 58, p. 460; 1873); Bmylants and Lang believed that much 
sulphocyanate was destroyed in the organism. The results of Poliak as regards the 
administration of sulphocyanate per os to man are in direct opposition to those of 
Edinger and Clemens (Zeit. fiir klin. Med. v. 59, p. 218); these authors found less 
than half of the sulphocyanate to be excreted. 
