778 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



physician of the organism one whose beneficient mission we 

 can govern at will by the many valuable agencies which science 

 has placed in our hands. 



ALKALINITY OF THE BLOOD AND THE PRESERVATION 

 OF LIFE DURING DISEASE. 



We began this chapter with an allusion to the remark- 

 able life-saving value of saline solution. As is well known, 

 the alkaline reaction of the blood is exceedingly marked, 

 and is mainly due to the sodium salts the serum contains. 

 Charrin 106 gives this reaction the first place among the protect- 

 ive properties of the blood and body-fluids, and rightly deems 

 it an essential condition of normal life. When it is reduced 

 through alimentation, abnormal fermentation, the virulence 

 of various micro-organisms, and deviations from the normal 

 chemical reactions of which the body-fluids, etc., are the seat, 

 correspondingly marked disturbances in the blood occur, with 

 disease as a result. 



Furthermore, the globulins, which normally contain 6 

 per cent, of potassium salts and e /io f 1 P er cent, of sodium 

 salts, and the albumoses are kept in solution in the plasma by 

 these salts. Chloride of sodium, besides this role, facilitates 

 osmosis and diapedesis. When it is recalled that several 

 grammes of this salt pass out of the organism in the urine 

 daily, probably assisting in the excretion of waste-products, 

 besides the two grammes which are eliminated with sweat, its 

 role in the preservation of conditions favorable to the main- 

 tenance of tissue-metabolism becomes evident. The di-sodium 

 phosphates, found in all tissues and fluids, usually in asso- 

 ciation with the sodium carbonates, are active in insuring the 

 alkalinity of the plasma, the lymph, the pericardial fluid, the 

 cephalo-rachidian fluid, the mucus (excepting the vaginal), the 

 tears, the milk, the synovia, the spermatic juice, the aqueous 

 humor, the saliva, the bile, the pancreatic juice, and the large 

 intestine. The sulphates of sodium and potassium are also 

 found in the majority of the above fluids, along with other 

 salts in smaller proportions. This alkalinity is of great indirect 

 importance in another direction: i.e., it enables the blood to 



108 Charrin: "Les Defenses Naturelles de 1'Organisme," 1898. 



