[686] Exper. Wirkungen der Oxalsäure, Virch. Archiv, Bd. lxxvii. S. 209.
J. Uppmann[687] made forty-nine experiments on dogs, in which he administered relatively large doses by the stomach; no poisonous effect followed. Emil Pfeiffer[688] gave a dog in three successive days ·2, ·5, and lastly 1 grm. oxalic acid with meat, but no symptoms resulted. Yet that oxalic acid, as sodic oxalate, is poisonous to dogs, if it once gets into the circulation, cannot be disputed. The accepted explanation is that the large amount of lime phosphates in the digestive canal of dogs is decomposed by oxalic acid, and the harmless lime oxalate formed.
[687] Allg. Med. central Ztg., 1877.
[688] Archiv der Pharm. (3 R.), Bd. xiii. S. 544, 1878.
Oxalic acid is absorbed into the blood, and leeches have been known to die after their application to a person who had taken a large dose. Thus Christison[689] quotes a case related by Dr. Arrowsmith, in which this occurred:—“They were healthy, and fastened immediately; on looking at them a few minutes after, I remarked that they did not seem to fill, and on touching one it felt hard, and instantly fell off motionless and dead; the others were in the same state. They had all bitten, and the marks were conspicuous, but they had drawn scarcely any blood. They were applied about six hours after the acid had been taken.”