LIFE AND ALKALINITY OP THE BLOOD. ; 783 



theria toxins. It seems to us that the animals deprived of one 

 adrenal were correspondingly less exposed to excessive tissue- 

 waste under the stimulating influence of a toxin than those 

 possessed of both their organs. Through the excessive metab- 

 olism at first induced in the latter, soon followed by adrenal 

 insufficiency and inhibition of all oxidation processes, toxic 

 waste-products were added to the toxin, thus submitting the 

 normal animals to the effects of two poisons, while the mu- 

 tilated ones suffered from those of only one. 



If this factor is added to those previously described, the 

 absence of plasmatic salts not only hampers the vital and de- 

 fensive functions of the organism, but it soon becomes an in- 

 direct source of general toxcemia which insures a fatal result even 

 in relatively benign cases. 



A disease in which the mortality has remained practically 

 unabated, notwithstanding the quantity of faithful work de- 

 voted to the elucidation of its pathology and treatment, is 

 pneumonia. This seems to us accounted for mainly by the fact 

 that the functional dependence of leucocytes upon the chlorides 

 has been entirely overlooked. Metchnikoff states, we have seen, 

 that trypsin only acts in the presence of salts, and that serum 

 loses its haemolytic power when relieved of them; again, we have 

 referred to the experiments of Kossel, which suggest that al- 

 kaline salts are factors in the intranuclear reactions. The rela- 

 tively enormous excess of leucocytes which invade the lungs 

 during the primary stage of this disease necessarily involves the 

 use of a correspondingly great quantity of these salts, the nu- 

 cleus and the trypsin soon appropriating all those available. 

 How are these salts replaced? The answer readily appears in 

 the light of the foregoing deduction: In a large proportion 

 of cases they are not replaced, and death occurs. 



Frederick P. Henry, of Philadelphia, who was the first cli- 

 nician to resort to this measure (1889), says 117 : "The surest 

 method of conveying water to the tissues is by subcutaneous 

 injections of (deci-) normal saline solution: a solution of com- 

 mon salt of the strength of 50 grains to a pint. About three 

 years ago a number of cases of pneumonia at the Philadelphia 



117 Frederick P. Henry: Hare's "System of Practical Therapeutics," first 

 edition, vol. ii, p. 290, 1892. 



