The combined effect of magnesium sulphate and sodium oxalate upon rabbits

Abstract

Our communication is concerned not with the prolonged, but with the immediate effect of the salts under discussion. The acute death of a rabbit which may occur within one hour or two after a subcutaneous injection of twenty-five or thirty centigrams of sodium oxalate per kilogram body-weight, is often preceded by a series of convulsions which may last fifteen to twenty minutes and which evidently are not due to asphyxia. Sublethal doses of ten or fifteen centigrams, which occasionally may cause some hypersensitiveness, are not followed by any serious symptoms. On the other hand death following subcutaneous injections of magnesium sulphate is ushered in, according to Meltzer and Auer, by paralysis without convulsions. Two grams of the salt (+ crystalline water) is a surely fatal dose; one gram and a half per kilo body-weight usually causes anesthesia and paralysis followed by recovery. Doses of less than one gram per kilo body-weight may cause a more or less definite state of drowsiness and weakness which is generally of short duration only. In no case of magnesium poisoning are the narcotic and paralytic symptoms complicated by convulsions or hyperesthesia.

The results which we have obtained in experiments with the simultaneous injections of both salts can be stated briefly as follows. Simultaneous injections of small doses of magnesium sulphate and sodium oxalate in separate parts of the animal body seem to produce an effect equal to that of a larger dose of magnesium sulphate alone. When, for instance, twelve or fifteen centigrams (per kilo body-weight) of sodium oxalate are injected subcutaneously into one side of the rabbit and eight or nine decigrams (per kilo body-weight) of magnesium sulphate are injected into the other side, the result is the development of such a degree of complete anesthesia and paralysis as follows a subcutaneous injection of fifteen decigrams of magnesium sulphate alone.