Blood Sugar Changes in the Rat Produced by Salt of Beryllium, Magnesium, and Zinc with Some Observations on Hemoglobin and Red Blood Corpuscles

This report is the direct result of research in this laboratory upon the physiological role of several metallic salts. The influence of magnesium salts upon the blood sugar content of rabbits was studied by Underhill (1) who found that hyperglycemia subsequent to magnesium injection was most evident during the period of anesthesia. Meltzer and Auer (2) had shown that an animal anesthetized by an injection of magnesium sulfate could be quickly restored to normal by an intravenous injection of calcium chloride. Underhill (1) showed that the hyperglycemia produced in rabbits anesthetized with magnesium salt was reduced to normal in two or three hours time by calcium chloride. Salant and Wise (3) observed the production of glycosuria in rabbits by zinc salts. They gave results which show that an intravenous injection of zinc malate caused hyperglycemia and glycosuria. These workers report that intravenous injection of calcium chloride did not cause a decrease in the glycosuria resulting from the zinc malate injection. They did not report the effect of calcium chloride upon the blood sugar