Antitoxic action of sodium iodid on morphin

Abstract

The relation of iodids to morphin was studied by Reid Hunt. He found that feeding mice, rats and guinea-pigs with potassium iodid increases their susceptibility to morphin poisoning. This may be considered as the chronic influence of iodids. In our experiments we studied their acute effects. Our experiments were made, in the first place, on rabbits and sodium iodid in 5 per cent. solution was the salt employed. Morphin was administered intravenously. The iodid solution was given intravenously, and sub-cutaneously, ten to thirty minutes before the morphin injection. The quantity of sodium iodid administered to each rabbit was quite large; 15 cubic centimeters intravenously and 30 cubic centimeters subcutaneously. Such injections of sodium iodid alone seemed to cause no ill-effects in rabbits.

Morphin, if not rapidly fatal, causes narcosis, paresis, tremors, convulsions and finally death. The fatal dose of morphin for rabbits is somewhat variable, it is therefore difficult to study the influence which other substances may exert upon the toxic action of morphin. The most definite results we obtained have been with doses of 300 and 250 milligrams of morphin per kilo body-weight. Eighteen rabbits received morphin alone; 11 of these animals received the drug (300 milligrams in each case) through the ear vein, while in 7 animals the morphin (300 or 250 milligrams) was injected through the jugular vein. Sixteen rabbits received sodium iodid besides morphin. In ten of these animals the injection (300 milligrams) was given through the ear vein and in six through the jugular vein. The difference in the results was quite striking. Of the eighteen animals which received morphin alone, ten died immediately after the injection, five lived less than 2 hours, one lived four days and two survived. Of the sixteen rabbits which received sodium iodid besides morphin, only one died immediately after the injection, three lived longer than three hours, i. e., between 3 and 20 hours (died in night), one lived eighteen, one twenty-three, and one thirty-six hours; one lived two days, one nine and one 16 days, and six rabbits survived.