A^Pt9mber?ia903?'}     Salicylic  Acid  and  Sodium  Salicylate.  403 
clothes  and  tremor,  all  the  classic  symptoms  of  the  disease,  but  it 
was  sodium  salicylate  which  had  produced  the  effect.  Withdrawing 
the  drug  and  allowing  its  effects  to  pass  off,  the  delirium  disap- 
peared, and  the  mother  was  intensely  relieved. 
At  a  meeting  of  the  Section  on  General  Medicine  of  the  New 
York  Academy  of  Medicine,  the  scientific  business  of  the  evening 
consisted  of  a  Symposium  on  Articular  Rheumatism.  Dr.  Simon 
Baruch  said  that  to  get  the  effect  from  the  salicylates  without  their 
inconveniences,  pure  salicylic  acid  should  be  used ;  only  that  derived 
from  the  oil  of  gaultheria  should  be  employed.  With  this  Dr. 
Baruch  gives  10  grains  of  sodium  bicarbonate,  making  an  extempo- 
raneous sodium  salicylate.  He  gives  20  grains  at  about  4  in  the 
afternoon,  and  the  same  dose  at  6,  8  and  10,  until  the  patient  has 
taken  80  grains.  The  tendency  to  salicylism  is  slept  off,  though 
the  ears  may  ring  until  about  noon  the  next  day.  Compresses  of 
cool  water  give  comfort  to  the  joints.  If  the  temperature  be  high, 
water  should  be  used  abundantly. 
Dr.  Abraham  Meyer  thinks  that  only  the  salicylic  acid  from 
genuine  oil  of  wintergreen  should  be  used.  There  are  two  other 
kinds  of  salicylates,  the  synthetic  and  that  made  from  synthetic  oil 
•of  wintergreen.  These  cause  disturbance  of  the  stomach  and 
■delirium. 
An  examination  of  the  oils  of  wintergreen,  salicylic  acid  and 
sodium  salicylate  upon  the  market  has  brought  out  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  wide  range  of  quality,  and  no  doubt  the  contradictory 
reports  of  clinical  observations  can  be  attributed  to  the  source,  viz. 
an  impure  article. 
We  are  indebted  to  M.  Charteris,  M.D.,  Dr.  MacLennan  and  Pro- 
fessor Dunstan  for  the  careful,  painstaking  and  impartial  manner 
with  which  they  have  investigated  the  chemical  composition  and 
reported  the  therapeutic  value  of  this  complex  subject. 
To  briefly  summarize  the  first  experiments  which  M.  Charteris, 
M.D.,  carried  on  with  Dr.  MacLennan,  a  10-grain  dose  of  the  arti- 
ficial salicylic  acid  and  18-grain  dose  of  the  artificial  sodium  salicyl- 
ate were  sufficient  to  cause  the  death  of  a  rabbit  weighing  2^  to  3 
pounds,  while  natural  salicylic  acid  with  its  salt  of  sodium  in  pro- 
portionate doses  caused  no  bad  results.  The  deductions  from  these 
experiments  indicated  that  artificial  salicylic  acid  and  its  sodium  salt 
were  dangerous  to  animal  life,  while  natural  salicylic  acid  and  its 
sodium  .calt  were  not. 
