Ixxxvi Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV, 
of the death-rate of cholera by enabling the common and most 
deadly suppression of the renal functions to be largely averted. 
I know of nothing more disheartening than after successfully 
Light was first thrown on this problem by an American 
physician Dr. Sellards working in the Philippines, who suspected 
a diminution in the alkalinity of the blood, or acidosis as it is 
generally termed, because he found that large doses of alkalies 
by the mouth failed to make the urine alkaline as it would do 
in health. He therefore added sodium bicarbonate to the saline 
cation had become established. Early in 1912. I therefore 
commenced an investigation of the changes in the alkalinity of 
the blood in cholera, which Sellards had not then done, and 
finding an extreme degree of reduced alkalinity in all cases with 
00 
from a normal of about 95 fatal suppression of urine took place 
in spite of very copious alkaline injections. It thus became 
clear that in all severe cholera cases sodium bicarbonate should 
be added to the hypertonic saline solution as a routine measure 
to combat the acidosis from the first, and prevent it reaching a 
rous degree. The results of this addition to the treatment 
