Gastrointestinal effects of acute ferrous sulfate poisoning in rats.

Ferrous sulfate administered intragastrically to rats produced two types of intestinal lesions: corrosive injury to the stomach and upper part of the small intestine, and ileal infarcts associated with venous thrombosis in some animals given fatal doses. Iron was deposited at the interface of viable and necrotic mucosa and in blood vessels of all layers. By means of electron microscopy the iron deposits were located in the basement membrane of the vessels. Fatal doses were always associated with intestinal injury, although the time of death suggests that death was caused by absorption of iron rather than by the local injury.