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A case of fatal arsenic poisoning is reported. The electrocardiographic and radiographic findings are presented, and an explanation is offered for the changes noted in tracings. Arsenic or other heavy metal poisoning should be given diagnostic consideration in any acute abdominal syndrome whose causation is not readily apparent. The presence of radiopaque material in the stomach in such instances furnishes strong evidence of metallic ingestion as the basis of the clinical picture.

Isolated rabbit hearts were perfused with a suspension of red blood cells in a buffer solution containing palmitate-1-C14 complexed to albumin. Arteriovenous differences of radioactivity in free fatty acids (FFA) and CO2 were measured after addition of epinephrine, norepinephrine, glucose and insulin under conditions of constant arterial concentration of FFA and rate of perfusion. Both norepinephrine and epinephrine increased the oxidation of free fatty acids to CO2 (48 and 53 per cent, respectively) but neither altered their extraction by the myocardium. Addition of glucose alone or glucose with insulin influenced neither the extraction nor the oxidation of FFA. Under the conditions of study, uptake of FFA by the heart was strictly proportional to the rate of perfusion.