Studies on the Toxicity of Bile

In a recent communication by Arthur Edmunds, t it is stated that the fall of blood pressure produced by intravenous injection of bile salts is insignificant. The statement is supported by the reproduction of tracings obtained from such experiments. The one obtained after an injection of 5 cubic centimeters of a i per cent. solution of sodium glycocholate shows hardly any depression. The depression seen on the tracing obtained from an injection of 5 cubic centimeters of a i per cent. solution of sodium taurocholate corresponds to a fall of not more than 15 or 20 millimeters of mercury. The author states further that the subject was investigated in the same laboratory 2 a few years before by Dr. A. Young, who also found that the effect of bile salts on blood pressure was very slight. With 5 per cent. solutions of the salts the fall observed by him was hardly greater than that shown in the figures presented by the present author. There have not been very many studies of the effect of bile upon the blood pressure, and of those made only few workers have given particulars or reproduced kymographic tracings. L. Traube, ~ who was the first one to study the blood-pressure effect of these salts by means of the kymograph, states that an intravenous