

1905.] an Gastric Contents in Malignant Disease of Organs. 159 
merely by the administration of acid, so as to give hydrogen ions to the 
blood plasma; but the matter is not so simple as it at first sight appears. 
It certainly is indicated that some attempt should be made to modify the 
reaction of the blood plasma, and if possible, restore the acid-secreting 
function of the oxyntic cells, and we are at present making attempts in this 
direction. 
But to keep permanently altered, even by continued therapeutic action, 
the reaction of the blood plasma is by no means easy of attainment. 
The reaction of the blood is determined by the agency of the liver and 
kidney cells, and if these have become set at a definite wrong level of action, 
all the regulating mechanism of the body is then at work against change of 
the reaction by therapeutic means. When acid is administered, urea is taken 
and broken up in the body, and ammonia obtained, which is used to neutralise 
the administered acid. 
Hence, it isonly with large and continued doses of acid, and on approaching 
the limits of acid intoxication, that any diminution in alkalinity can be hoped 
for, and as scon as acid administration is slackened, the acid is neutralised 
by more ammonia obtained from oxidised proteid. 
Thus, even admitting that the diminished acid secretion is due to diminished 
corcentration of hydrogen ions in the blood plasma, we are still face to face 
with the problem of how to maintain that hydrogen ion concentration in the 
blood plasma permanently at a higher level, against the competition of the 
kidney and other cells in the body which are all the time tending to reduce 
it to its old vicious level. 
