Extreme Toxicity of Sodium Chloride and Its Prevention by Other Salts

A pure sodium chloride solution, at the concentration in which this salt exists in sea-water, may be poisonous to marine organisms, as was first proven by Loeb,’ who found that the young of a marine fish (Fundulus) soon die in y to F solution of sodium chloride. That death is due to the poisonous action of the sodium chloride, and not merely to the absence of other constituents of the sea-water, was shown by control experiments with distilled water, in which the young fish lived indefinitely. It would, as Loeb remarks, be impossible to prove the toxicity of sodium chloride were not the organism capable of living in distilled water. In botanical literature, there are recorded very few experiments on the toxicity of sodium chloride, where control experiments were made with distilled water. The germination of seeds, which takes place readily in distilled water, is said to be inhibited by solutions of sodium chloride ranging from two to eleven per cent., and solutions as weak as five-tenths per cent. may exert a slightly injurious influence.2 Lindforss3 states that pollen grains of some plants will not grow in one-tenth per cent. sodium Ichloride although they do so in distilled water. It is stated by True 4 and [Klebs 5 that $$ sodium chloride