Effect of various electrolytes upon cardiac and skeletal musculature.

In rats kept on a low-potassium diet that contains only maintenance levels of magnesium, cardiac necroses and muscular cramps were readily induced by the oral administration of sodium perchlorate or disodium hydrogen phosphate. The precipitation of these cardiac and skeletal muscle changes by sodium chlorate was prevented by the prophylactic administration of either potassium or magnesium chlorides. The protective effect of these chlorides against the cardiotoxic and convulsive effects of disodium hydrogen phosphate has already been demonstrated by our earlier experiments. Sodium sulphate produced cardiac necroses in rats maintained on the same diet, and both potassium and magnesium chlorides had a prophylactic action. Unlike sodium perchlorate, however, sodium sulphate produced no muscular cramps under these conditions. Equimolecular amounts of sodium given in the form of sodium chloride (instead of sodium perchlorate, sodium sulphate, or disodium hydrogen phosphate) did not cause cardiac necroses or muscular cramps in rats maintained on the potassium-deficient diet. As the same three sodium salts, namely the perchlorate, the sulphate, and the hydrogen phosphate, produced cardiac necroses in rats sensitized by either a potassium-deficient diet or by certain corticoids, it seems that the anion must play a decisive rôle, since equivalent amounts of NaCl are ineffective.