Studies on Acetonuria. 



91 



has been possible, by means of intermittent quinidine therapy, 

 properly spaced, to maintain the normal rhythm for over five 

 months, with coincident marked clinical improvement. 



Intravenous injection of atropine sulphate (1.0 to 1.5 mgm.) in 

 these patients, at a time when fibrillation was present and again 

 when the normal rhythm prevailed, resulted in the usual increase 

 in ventricular rate, but in no significant alteration in the cardiac 

 mechanism or in the form of the electrocardiogram. 



Cases in which Restoration of the Normal Mechanism was Not 

 Accomplished. — Eleven courses of quinidine were administered to 

 8 patients. As in the group just decsribed, tachycardia was 

 commonly the first effect observed. Ventricular premature beats, 

 at times in the form of coupled rhythm, were more commonly seen 

 than in those patients in whom the sinus rhythm was eventually 

 established. Occasionally the fibrillatory waves became coarser. 

 In two patients auricular flutter followed administration of the 

 drug, but a larger dosage was not followed by the normal rhythm. 

 In one of these cases auricular flutter persisted for three days and 

 was followed, after administration of digitalis, by reversion to the 

 fibrillatory mechanism. Paroxysms of ectopic ventricular tachy- 

 cardia occurred three times. Although of short duration, they 

 served to indicate that quinidine as a therapeutic agent was not 

 to be administered with impunity, for ventricular tachycardia 

 occurring in dogs poisoned by digitalis or strophanthin is not 

 infrequently the precursor of ventricular fibrillation. 



48 (1795) 



Studies on the acetonuria produced by diets high in fat. 



By ROGER S. HUBBARD and FLOYD R. WRIGHT. 



[From the Clifton Springs Sanitarium, N. Y.] 



The following ratio was suggested to express the ketogenic 

 balance of any diet: 



100 X 1 ^ ( we * gnt carD ohyd r ate + 25 per cent, weight protein ). 



95 per cent, weight fat 

 This ratio is based on the relative molecular weights of glucose 

 and the higher fatty acids — stearic, palmitic, and oleic; in it it is 



