Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  > 
Sept.  1, 1872.  j 
Cutaneous  Absorption, 
405 
CUTANEOUS  ABSORPTION. 
In  a  recent  note  to  the  Paris  Academy,  M.  Bernard  writes  as  fol- 
lows : — 
I  desire  to  submit  to  the  Academy  an  account  of  experiments  made 
in  the  Vincennes  Asylum  as  to  cutaneous  absorption  in  baths  of 
medicinal  vapor.  In  such  an  institution,  among  patients  with  various 
chronic  affections,  I  am  favorably  situated  for  experimenting  on  this 
question  on  a  large  scale. 
Reveil's  memoir  on  the  subject  gives  the  facts  which  are  known  up 
to  the  present.  "Absorption  in  the  bath,"  he  says,  "  only  takes  place 
in  rare  and  exceptional  circumstances  ;  it  is  facilitated  by  washing 
the  skin,  continued  rubbing,  and  by  certain  irritant  and  solvent  sub- 
stances." 
The  bath  apparatus  consists  of  a  furnace,  a  boiler,  a  chamber  in 
which  the  steam  coming  from  the  boiler  was  charged  with  the  sub- 
stance to  be  applied,  and  a  wooden  cage,  in  which  the  patient  was 
seated  while  enveloped  in  the  vapor. 
I  used  iodide  of  potassium  in  my  experiments — (1)  because  it  is  not 
volatile  ;  (2)  because  its  presence  in  urine  is  easily  determined  by  ni- 
tric acid  and  chloroform  ;  (3)  because,  in  seizing  the  iodine  set  at  lib- 
erty by  the  nitric  acid,  the  chloroform  takes  a  rose  color  varying  in  a 
marked  way  with  quantity,  and  thus,  by  comparing  with  a  graduated 
scale,  one  may  determine  pretty  accurately,  and  without  quantitative 
analysis,  the  quantity  of  iodide  of  potassium  in  the  urine. 
The  skin  of  the  subjects  experimented  on  was  intact,  without  wound 
or  scratch.  The  urine  was  examined  before  the  bath  was  taken,  and 
the  absence  of  iodine  ascertained.  By  a  respiratory  tube,  the  patient 
breathed  the  external  air  through  his  mouth,  the  nostrils  being 
pinched.  A  thick  sheet  of  caoutchouc  was  bound  by  a  T-bandage 
over  the  anus ;  the  penis  was  sheathed  in  the  same  material ;  while 
the  hands  and  feet  were  wrapped  in  cotton  and  gummed  taffeta. 
The  subject  was  then  placed  in  the  cage,  and  subjected  for  thirty 
minutes  to  vapor  from  the  mixing  chamber,  into  which  there  had  been 
put  20  grms.  of  iodide  of  potassium.  The  temperature  in  the  cage 
was  gradually  raised  to  45°;  the  skin  of  the  subject  became  wet.  He 
was  then  wrapped  in  a  woolen  covering  and  put  in  bed,  when  profuse- 
perspiration  took  place.  The  urine  analyzed  two  hours  after  the  bath 
gave  a  rose  color :  some  taken  three  hours  after  gave  a  much  more 
/ 
