171 Clin. Soc. Trans., xiii. p. 266, c. iii.
172 Ibid., p. 123.
173 Quoted by D. Seille, Thèse, De la Méd. Salicylée dans le Rheumatism, Paris, 1879, p. 54.
174 Clin. Soc. Trans., x. p. 70, 1877.
Instead of the frequent weak pulse above mentioned, I have many times found salicylate of sodium render the pulse very slow, labored, and compressible in typhoid fever, and generally at the same time the temperature has been considerably reduced below what it had been.
A temporary albuminuria is not infrequent; excluding mere traces, it obtained in 52 per cent. of cases treated by the salicylates alone or in conjunction with full doses of alkali, and in but 25 per cent. of those in which full doses of alkali, with or without quinia, were employed.175
175 Isambard Owen, Lancet, ii., 1881, p. 1081.
Very rarely hæmaturia and even nephritis have occurred. The active principle is chiefly eliminated by the kidneys, which may account for a local irritating influence upon those organs.
Salicine is much preferred by Maclagan to salicylic acid and to salicylate of sodium, on the grounds that it is a bitter tonic and produces less debility and more rapid convalescence than those agents, and that it never produces delirium nor depresses the heart's action. Ringer176 and Charteris177 state that they have never seen salicine, even in large doses, cause delirium; and Prof. Gairdner has not found it produce any unfavorable symptoms.178 On the other hand, Greenhow179 found that marked depression of the heart's power ensued in 4 out of 10 cases whilst the patients were taking salicine, and entirely subsided after it was discontinued. Further careful and extended observation is needed before the relative value of salicine and salicylate of sodium can be reliably stated. It is probable that the salt is more active and prompt than the bitter principle; and this, with the greater cheapness of the former, may perhaps account for the more general employment in hospitals of the salicylate than of salicine. The latter, moreover, is often tolerated when the former is not.
176 Handbook Therapeutics, 8th ed., 1880, 587.