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] [Footnote 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. Ringer[176] and Charteris[177] 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, Greenhow[179] 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. [Footnote 176: _Handbook Therapeutics_, 8th ed., 1880, 587.] [Footnote 177: _Brit. Med. Jour._, i., 1881, 229.] [Footnote 178: _Lancet_, i., 1882, in table giving experience of British hospitals, prepared by Maclagan.] [Footnote 179: _Trans. Path. Soc._, xiii. 262.]