Barium: A Cause of the Loco-Weed DiseaseCrawford, Albert C. (Albert Cornelius)
Science
Barium: A Cause of the Loco-Weed Disease
Crawford, Albert C. (Albert Cornelius)
Astragalus earlei; Barium
The filtrate, after treating an active solution of the ash with hydrogen
peroxid, proved active, thus showing that zirconium was not entirely
responsible for the poisonous action.
Yttrium, while not found in the plant, was administered as yttrium
chlorid to a rabbit weighing 1,530 grams in 2-gram doses in solution.
This animal gained 113.4 grams in five days.
Didymium chlorid c. p., in 3-gram doses, was fed to a rabbit weighing
1,020 grams. This rabbit lost 70 grams in four days.
The administration of manganese acetate[167] in 2-gram doses was
followed by a gain in weight of a rabbit of 42.5 grams, while a dose of
3 grams killed a rabbit weighing 1,077 grams in two hours and thirty
minutes. Wohlwill[168] has emphasized the fact that the members of the
iron group owe their comparative harmlessness to not being absorbed by
the gastro-intestinal tract.
No zinc was found in the plant.[169]
It is well recognized that potassium salts given hypodermically are
decidedly toxic and that ammonium salts given per os will kill, so that
the writer considered the possibility of other members of the group
being responsible for the injurious action. The fact that the alkaline
distillate of the plant proved inactive eliminated the ammonium salts.
Cæsium chlorid c. p., 2 grams, was fed in aqueous solution to a rabbit
weighing 1,077.2 grams. In six days this animal lost 255 grams in
weight, when it died.[170]
A second rabbit, weighing 1,020.5 grams, was fed with 2 grams of the
same solution and lost 368 grams in twenty-one days. The spectroscopic
test, however, failed to show cæsium in the ashed plant. Rubidium
chlorid c. p., in 2-gram doses, proved inactive. The platinum chlorid
precipitate from the extract of the plant proved inactive.
The fact that the filtrate after precipitation of the phosphates by tin
and nitric acid and H_{2}S was active excluded the phosphoric acid
radical, and the filtrate after treatment with BaCO_{3} and AgO being
active excluded the H_{2}SO_{4} and HCl radicals as the toxic body.
Fluorine was proved to be absent.
A radio-active substance was suspected, but Dr. L. J. Briggs, Physicist
of Bureau of Plant Industry, reported that the dried plant showed no
special amount of radio-activity.[171]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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