118 



On " Intertraction " between Albuminous Substances and Saline 



Solutions. 

 B7 Sir Almeoth E. Wright, M.D., F.E.S. 



(Received November 30, 1920.) 



In 1906 I pointed out that hypertonic salt solutions applied to wounds, 

 sinuses and foci of infection increased the discharge from these, supple- 

 menting the ordinary mechanical drainage by drawing out from the tissues 

 infected and corrupted lymph. 



In the war, and especially in its earlier period when every form of sepsis 

 and gangrene was rife and almost every wound was foul, I again advocated 

 treatment by hypertonic salt solutions. The method was then employed 

 extensively and with good results. 



Hereupon followed a detailed study of the action of hypertonic salt solutions 

 upon the wound, and also an examination of their action in vitro* It was in 

 the course of this latter found that when a receptacle containing strong salt 

 solution is connected up with a receptacle containing water by a siphon tube 

 threaded with a wick or filled with water and armed (at the end which dips 

 into the salt solution) with a tight cottonwool plug, water is slowly drawn 

 into the salt solution — the level, of this rising and that of the water falling. 



A much more rapid and abundant drawing effect — in the form of a down 

 draught of supernatant fluid into a heavier salt solution — was obtained by 

 taking a test-tube, dividing it up into an upper and lower compartment by a 

 plug of cottonwool soaked in a solution of white of egg possessing a specific 

 gravity of 1026 and then filling the lower compartment (through a lateral 

 opening) with a saline solution possessing a specific gravity of 1052, and the 

 upper chamber (which here provides a control) with water. It was found that 

 the egg albumen was under these conditions carried down rapidly and in large 

 quantity into the subjacent heavier salt solution while none found its way 

 into the superjacent water. 



That experiment would seem to suggest that the forces of diffusion are at 

 any rate in the case where albuminous substances and saline solutions are 

 brought into conjunction, supplemented by what I should like to call "forces 

 of intertraction." 



In the following that hypothesis is subjected to certain further examination. 

 The method of investigation adopted was to superimpose serum or other 

 albuminous fluids directly upon heavier saline solutions, or upon occasion 

 * 'Proceedings Eojal Institution,' March 9, 1917 ; and 'Lancet,' June 23, 1917. 



