A recent article 1 concerning the failure of bismuth, given intramuscularly in the treatment of syphilis, to be properly absorbed differs so much from my own observations that I feel it incumbent on me to report a series of cases showing how satisfactorily bismuth can be absorbed.
Dr. Erdman has shown that bismuth of various kinds was not absorbed in the few cases that he reports, and in one of them potassium bismuth tartrate in oil was shown by roentgenogram to be unabsorbed 204 days after the last injection.
It is, in my opinion, better to report such observations as Dr. Erdman has presented with a report of the technic of administration of the bismuth, for otherwise there is a danger of discrediting a valuable therapeutic aid to the cure of syphilis. Such a great difference in his observations and mine could not be an accident. It is the result