45^ Water Absorption by Protoplasm [Mar, 



The first is a special question I do not care to discuss at the pres- 

 ent time. Repeated hemorrhage on a free diet is followed by 

 edema. An animal may have a great edema before it evidences 

 itself as a "visible anasarca." 



What is the explanation of the absence of general edema in diabetic 

 "acidosis"?" (Page 310.) 



That about 40 per cent. of the true diabetics with acidosis show 

 an obvious edema is a generally recognized clinical fact. Rollin T. 

 Woodyatt found in a series of careful studies on diabetics that their 

 body weight increased or diminished a kilo or two in twenty-four 

 hours when, through diet, their acidosis was permitted to run up 

 or down. 



Do all observers agree that " the fluid of an edematous tissue is 

 very decidedly in the cells themselves ?" (Page 310.) 



I did not say only in the cells. This phrase was used in com- 

 batting the notion that cells have "membranes" of an osmotic or 

 lipoid character about them. It was used when I was maintaining 

 that the absorption of water or any dissolved substance by a cell 

 anywhere in nature was not yet explained when we had succeeded 

 merely in getting these substances through such a hypothetical over- 

 coat about the cell. I have everywhere in my writings emphasized 

 more than any other author the importance of all the intercellular 

 substances, whether solid or liquid, and have made them rank as of 

 equal importance with the cells themselves in this whole problem 

 of the absorption and secretion of water and of dissolved substances. 



Is there no excess of interstitial water in edema? (Page 311.) 



There is, for the interstitial solid or liquid colloids swell, if a 

 source of water is available, just as do the cells that are composed 

 of the same material. 



"If general edema fails to occur in diabetes because of neutralization of the 

 " diabetic acids " or if the acids of diabetic " acidosis " merely neutralize ab- 

 normal basicity, in what material respects are these neutralization and inhibitive 

 effects different from those that normally prevail in practically all parts of the 

 living body? Surely, since large proportions of non-electrolytes are practically 

 without inhibitive effects on colloidal attraction for water in the presence of free 

 acid, "diabetic sugar" would not cause the observed difference. (Page 310.) 



