THE ACTION OF TARTAR EMETIC. 525 
may tread upon a stone and navicular disease may follow. All 
these diseases are transmissible hereditarily, or none of them 
are, there is the same kind and amount of evidence in favour 
of all being so perpetuated as of any one, and giving full force to 
doubts which some people entertain as to the fact of the young 
animals inheriting the diseases of their parents, we hold it to 
be an accepted principle that every care should he taken to 
select sound stock for breeding ; and the members of the 
veterinary profession should be among the first to give their 
support to this principle by simply and positively declining 
to certify an animal sound when he is the subject of a disease 
which can be detected by the exercise of ordinary care and 
skill 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
THE ACTION OF TARTAR EMETIC. 
The importance of deeper investigations into the action 
of medicines than any yet realised in this country is made 
apparent by some of the more searching inquiries of German 
experimenters. One of these, Dr. Nobiling, has lately been 
experimenting on himself and on some of the lower animals 
with tartar emetic, and one of the conclusions at which he 
arrives seems to us somewhat startling. The following are 
his conclusions :—1. There are two independent modes of 
action in tartar emetic; one on the heart, and the other on 
the intestinal canal. 2. The action of the potash is on the 
heart, and that of the antimony is on the intestines. 3. Potash 
has a directly paralysing action upon the heart. 4. The 
tartaric acid is" without any effect upon the system. 
The conclusion to which we direct special attention is the 
third, as to the paralysing power of tartar emetic residing, 
not in the antimony, but in the potash. Dr. Nobiling 
endeavoured to ascertain the physiological effect of the 
different ingredients. He found ‘^that while a small dose 
of potassio-tartrate of antimony caused death in a frog, the 
same dose of sodio-tartrate of antimony produced no effect.” 
Nowadays, when we are using the salts of potash by the 
ounce, or even by the pound, it seems rather startling to be 
told that the depressing power of tartar emetic on the heart 
