Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.,  1891. 
Toxic  Action  of  Uranium. 
23 
the  fact,  of  no  great  importance  whilst  the  use  of  uranium  salts  was 
confined  to  the  chemist  and  technologist,  that  the  substance  in  ques- 
tion is  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  metallic  poisons.  Although 
this  fact  has  been  known  for  years,  it  has  been  somewhat  overlooked 
in  much  the  same  way  as  the  extreme  toxicity  of  barium  salts  has 
been  little  insisted  on,  and  the  researches  of  Woroschilsky,  chron - 
icled  in  the  Chemiker  Zeitung,  are  especially  apropos  at  this  time. 
Our  knowledge  of  uranium  dates  from  its  discovery  in  Bohemian 
pitch-blende  by  Klaproth,  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  the  first 
investigation  of  the  physiological  action  of  its  salts  appears  to  have 
been  made  in  1824  by  Gmelin,  who  mentions  its  poisonous  char- 
acter. Leconte,  in  185 1,  confirmed  this  assertion,  and  added  that 
one  of  the  most  characteristic  symptoms  of  poisoning  by  uranium 
was  the  occurrence  of  large  quantities  of  sugar  in  the  urine,  where- 
upon homceopathists  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  it  must  be  a 
specific  for  diabetes.  Woroschilsky's  experiments  show  that  sugar 
certainly  appears  in  the  urine  after  the  administration  of  uranium 
salts  by  the  mouth,  or  by  subcutaneous  injection.  As  the  net  result 
of  eight  experiments  with  the  nitrate,  he  agrees  with  the  conclusion 
of  Leconte  and  Chittenden  that  it  is  intensely  poisonous.  But 
neither  the  nitrate  nor  the  acetate  is  well  suited  for  physiological 
investigations,  as  both  salts  coagulate  albumen,  even  when  diluted 
in  the  proportion  of  1  :  10000.  Further  experiments  were,  there- 
fore, instituted  with  the  double  tartrate  of  uranium  and  sodium, 
which  is  both  readily  soluble  and  does  not  precipitate  albumen.  It 
may  be  prepared  by  neutralizing  a  solution  of  10  grams  of  pure 
uranic  oxide  (U03)  in  300  cc.  of  a  4  per  cent,  solution  of  tartaric 
acid,  with  caustic  soda,  and  diluting  to  400  cc.  The  resulting 
brown-yellow  clear  liquid  is  stable  if  kept  from  light ;  it  yields,  on 
evaporation,  a  glassy,  amorphous  mass,  no  crystalline  double  salt 
being  formed.  The  double  tartrate  gives  with  potassium  ferro- 
cyanide  a  deep  brown  coloration  instead  of  the  usual  precipitate 
yielded  by  ordinary  uranium  salts,  and  with  ammonium  sulphide, 
after  standing  a  moment,  an  intensely  yellow  precipitate,  which  is 
soluble  in  ammonium  carbonate. 
The  physiological  action  of  this  salt,  exhibited  in  various  ways, 
was  studied  in  the  case  of  worms,  frogs,  birds  and  mammals.  It  was 
found  that  whether  absorbed  through  the  mucous  membrane  of  the 
stomach,  or  introduced  by  subcutaneous  injection,  it  is  powerfully 
