Vanadium

The Metal. V. (A. W. 5l.2). Trituration. (Burnett used the "soluble ammonium salt.")

Clinical

Addison's disease / Atheroma / Fatty degeneration / Innutrition

Characteristics

Burnett (Fifty Reasons) tells how he came to use Van. through reading the result of some experiments on animals in which the Salts of Vanadium produced "true cell destruction, the pigment escaping, the liver being hit hardest." Burnett had at the time a case of "fatty liver, atheroma of the arteries, much pain corresponding to the course of the basilar artery, large, deeply pigmented patches on forehead, profound adynamia." Van. restored the patient, who was seventy, and at eighty he was "hale and hearty." Marc Jousset (L'Art Méd., lxxxix. 217) tells of experiments with salts of Van., chiefly the meta-vanadate of sodium, by Lyonnet and others. Animals poisoned by intravenous injections rapidly develop Cheyne-Stokes respiration; with little or no action on circulation or blood. These observers gave Vanadates to two hundred patients (suffering from tuberculosis, chlorosis, chronic rheumatism, neurasthenia, &c.), and produced in nearly all cases increased appetite, strength, and weight. The amount of urea was also increased. They regard Van. as "an energetic excitant of nutrition," and probably an oxydant stimulating organic combustion. The dose was 2-5 mgr. in twenty-four hours, and only on three separate days in the week.

Relations

Compare: Fatty degeneration, Phos., Ars. Addison's disease, Adren. Tuberculosis, Tub., Bac.