784 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



Hospital were treated by the writer in this manner and with 

 excellent results, both as regards palliation and cure." 118 This 

 method was also used by him in the worst types of lobar pneu- 

 monia met with: i.e., those that occur in drunkards, alcoholic 

 intoxication, expo'sure and a debilitated adrenal system incident 

 to the alcohol habit, concurring to place the patient on the 

 brink of death almost from the start. After vividly describing 

 a case of this kind he remarks: "Such cases treated by ordinary 

 methods terminate, as a rule, with few exceptions, in death. 

 Such cases treated by hypodermoclysis terminate, as a rule, in 

 recovery." In the light of our investigations, the immediate 

 use of this measure, i.e., as soon as the diagnosis is established, 

 becomes imperative, and the fact that even during health about 

 V 2 ounce of chloride of sodium alone is voided with the excre- 

 tions in twenty-four hours (Purdy), points to the need of its 

 frequent introduction into the organism during disease. 



Again, it seems to us that the mortality of diphtheria 

 could still be further reduced were the saline solution consid- 

 ered as a necessary accompaniment of antitoxin injections. In 

 all the diseases to which we have referred in the foregoing 

 pages, tetanus, typhoid fever, scarlatina, and small-pox espe- 

 cially, a reduction of alkaline salts in the blood-stream can like- 

 wise, it seems to us, be distinctly discerned; and, if our inter- 

 pretation of the scheme of life is not erroneous, most of them 

 owe their lethal tendency mainly to this cause. Even apart 

 from the more exact solutions employed, mere rectal injections 

 of a solution composed of chloride of sodium, one drachm to 

 the pint of water, at 104 F. (40 C.), renewed once in awhile 

 have often kept death at bay and insured recovery. Why not 

 supply the system from the outset of a febrile disease, or, indeed, 

 any other general disorder, with the constituents that preserve 

 the mechanical freedom of all nutritional and protective func- 

 tions, including those of the adrenal system itself? The colon is 

 also provided with solitary lymph-follicles which supply leuco- 

 cytes capable of appropriating from the intestinal contents all 

 useful constituents. The presence of such a fluid in the colon, 

 judging from the promptness with which some patients revive 

 when it is used, evidently gives rise to marked activity in this 



"8 Editorial, Medical News, July 6, 1901. 



