The Journal of experimental medicine
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The results of these experiments are definite. There is, in the first place, a very striking difference with regard to precipitate formation between the acid and alkaline solutions of salvarsan when injected intravenously. Intravenous injections of alkaline solutions of salvarsan produce no precipitate in the blood, while injections of the acid solution nearly always give a precipitate. ⋯ While in a one tenth per cent. solution twenty and thirty milligrams per kilo of body weight of the acid solution may be injected with impunity, even six or seven milligrams per kilo may prove rapidly fatal when injected in a one half per cent. solution. Our own results, however, leave us with two puzzling questions : First, if the acid solution of salvarsan causes such a coarse precipitate in the right ventricle and in the lungs, how does it happen that this precipitate does not bring about the death of the animal? Second, what is the real cause of the remarkable fact that this precipitate does not pass over into the arterial side of the circulation? Does the precipitate undergo a profound chemical or mechanical change while it passes through the lung capillaries? In future investigations we may try to answer these interesting questions. For the present, it is necessary to be content with the establishment of the bare facts as they are presented in the conclusions.
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1. Adrenalin injected intraperitoneally increases the rapidity of absorption of fluid from the peritoneal cavity, independently of whether the solution to be absorbed is hypotonic or hypertonic or is approximately isotonic with the blood serum. The intravenous injection of adrenalin also increases the absorption of fluid, but not so markedly as does the intraperitoneal injection. 2. ⋯ Therefore, calcium chloride increases directly the transudation into the peritoneal cavity and does not cause an increase in the amount of fluid in the peritoneal cavity merely by inhibiting the absorption. 8. It follows that adrenalin does not increase the amount of peritoneal transudate found after the intravenous infusion of large quantities of sodium chloride solution, to which adrenalin has been added, by delaying the absorption from the peritoneal cavity. The increased amounts of peritoneal fluid must be due to increased transudation into the peritoneal cavity; and the adrenalin, in view of its marked effect on absorption from the peritoneal cavity, must increase the movement of fluid into the peritoneal cavity much more strongly than could be assumed from the figures obtained in the infusion experiments.