Abstract
In a series of eight experiments dextrose was injected into dogs which had received 10 mg. of morphin per kilo of body weight. Ten other dogs received similar dextrose injections but no morphin, the slight operation having been performed under local anesthesia produced by cocain or ethylchloride. The dosage of dextrose was 4 gm. per kilo of body weight, injected in a 20 per cent. solution in about one hour. The difference in the urinary and blood findings in these two series of experiments was quite striking. In the eight morphinized animals the average quantity of sugar in the urine secreted in two hours and a half (that is, from the beginning until one and a half hours after the end of the injection) amounted to 63 per cent. of the injected sugar, 80 per cent. being the largest and 50 per cent. the smallest quantity.
As to the sugar content of the blood, we may state briefly that in the non-morphinized dogs the original level was reached in half an hour after the end of the injection, while in the morphinized dogs that level was reached only one hour and a half after the end of the injection.
Summarizing briefly our results with regard to the effect of morphin we may say that, on the one hand, it increases considerably the elimination through the kidneys of intravenously injected dextrose, while, on the other hand, it perceptibly retards the return of the sugar content of the blood to its previous level.
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