General observations on the elimination, catalysis and counter-action of poisons : with especial reference to oxaluria and ague / by J.A. Easton.

  • Easton, J. A. (John Alexander), 1807-1865.
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General observations on the elimination, catalysis and counter-action of poisons : with especial reference to oxaluria and ague / by J.A. Easton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    6 named productrf of tlie secoiviaiy mat.aniorplilc assimilation arc arrested in their transitional stages without undergoing that further and final degradation wliich is necessary for their ultimate removal from the organism. Thus, from great deficiency of oxygen uric acid may remain unchanged ; or when the supply is greater, but yet not sufficient, oxalic acid only may be formed, and may remain as such, instead of being converted into the last products of oxidation, carbonic acid and urea. These ultimate changes are effected through the instrumentality of oxygen, and thus, in cases of so-called oxaluria, it is to supply the amount of oxygen necessary for degrading oxalic down to carbonic acid, that an oxidizing agent like the nitro-muriatic acid is administered. In what way the nitro-muriatic acid supplies oxygen will appear from a consideration of its composition, and of the chemical changes which take place during its preparation. The aqua regia, as this body is generally called, is made, as every one knows, by mixing definite proportions of nitric and muriatic acids. Certain chemical clianges take place which it is unneces- sary to specify, but for all practical purj^oses, the result, medici- nally considered, may be affirmed to be the evolution of chlorine and the formation of water. But the chlorine reacts on the water, combines with its hydrogen, sets free the oxygen, and thus earns for itself the title of an oxidizing agent. The chlorine is there- fore the real instrument which liberates the oxygen in that nas- cent state in wliich its energy is the most intense. A similar reaction is familiar to })ersons who are engaged in some of the industrial arts, particularly in bleaching, in which process, as is well known, the nascent oxygen, generated under similar circum- stances through the agency of chlorine, is in reality the agent by which the bleaching is effected. When, therefore, the so-called nitro-muriatic acid is administered in oxaluria, the oxalic acid is very likely attacked by the now sup])lemented oxygen, and reduced by it to the condition of carbonic acid, as will probably be better understood by the following equation :— O3 + O rz 2 ro2. But it may be asked, How is the lime disposed of, and is not carbonate of lime, equally with the oxalate of lime, an insoluble, and therefore a difficultly eliminable salt ? If the above equation, however, correctly represents tlie chemical changes which ensue, it will be observed, that two equivalents of carbonic acid are formed, under the influence of the supplied oxygen, out of every one equivalent of the degraded oxalic acid, and therefore, that tlie soluble bicarbonate of lime is more likely to be formed than the neutral insoluble carbonate. Besides, even supposing that the latter were the produced salt, it is well known that the car- bonates, as a class, are very unstable compounds, and that, as the urine abounds in highly acid salts, the neutral calcareous car-