BARIUM CHLORIDE. 
39 
nervous diseases in human practice, but its use has not been at¬ 
tended with much success. 
Its special action in the animal body, particularly if intro¬ 
duced into the circulatory system, is in contracting involuntary 
muscular tissue ; and being thus capable of producing powerful 
peristalsis, has exerted its beneficial effects in the diseases re¬ 
ferred to in veterinary practice. 
Experimenters found that two grains intravenously injected 
into a dog weighing thirty pounds, the pupil dilated, urine abun- 
' dant, and death by arrest of respiration, with remarkable fibril¬ 
lary muscular contraction, continuing after death. 
Drs. Eanders, Bruntin, and Hobart Han assert that it is a 
rapidly acting heart stimulant in small doses ; increasing the 
force and volume of the blood thrown out by the systole. 
By another it is claimed that barium chloride exerts an in¬ 
fluence over the heart similar to digitalis. I have used the drug 
in something over twenty cases, and only when the heart action 
was very weak, and the strength of the animal far spent through 
the effect of the disease, have I been able to note any particular 
effect other than that of producing powerfully increased peris¬ 
talsis ; and this effect has in every case been very prompt. It is 
fully as energetic in its action on the bowel as eserine, and being 
devoid of the depressant action of the latter, on the heart, throws 
the preference greatly in its favor. 
So far as toxicity of the drug is concerned, I think we have 
little to fear, if it is used in anything like the doses usually pre¬ 
scribed, and proper judgment exercised, as to the cases in which 
it should be used, and the manner of its administration. 
On this subject the Annual of The Universal Sciences^ issue 
of 1894, Vol. V, says: “ Pellict and JMalbec have studied the 
toxic properties of the salts of barium. Hypodermic injection of 
the chloride in doses of one-twelfth grain per pound of body 
weight, produced death in dogs in twenty-four hours aftefi the 
administration of the drug.” 
The dose usually given intravenously to an average sized 
Iiorse is about fifteen grains. Reckoning the weight of the aver- 
