Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
ISov.,  1918. 
Normal  Salt  Solution. 
783 
Some  35  years  ago,  Kronecker  and  Souder  demonstrated  that 
dogs,  which  have  been  previously  bled  almost  to  the  point  of  death, 
could  be  restored  to  life  by  a  subsequent  infusion  of  a  so-called 
physiologic  salt  solution,  prepared  in  a  saline  concentration  of  0.6 
per  cent.  Control  animals  brought  to  an  identical  condition  invari- 
ably died.  It  was  perhaps  these  experiments  that  paved  the  way  for 
the  constant  use  of  a  0.6  per  cent,  sodium  chloride  solution,  and  it 
was  demonstrated  later  that  the  saline  concentration  of  the  blood 
in  dogs  and  other  animals,  and  especially  the  herbivora,  was  in- 
variably lower  than  in  the  human  being. 
Soon  thereafter -Dr.  Goltz  produced  revolutionary  methods  of 
treatment  in  cases  of  profuse  hemorrhage,  and  salt  solution  imme- 
diately became  a  therapeutic  measure,  replacing  the  unfavorable 
and  uncertain  though  commonly  used  method  of  blood  transfu- 
sion ;  and  as  Dr.  Cushing  of  Johns  Hopkins  well  states,  "  soon  took 
the  preference  over  all  other  irrigations  in  preventing  post  operative 
thirst,  flushing  out  septic  material  and  that  for  certain  conditions, 
especially  those  associated  with  loss  of  blood  and  its  concentration 
from  dehydration  of  the  tissues,  no  other  efficacious  form  of  treat- 
ment is  available ;  that  in  a  great  number  of  intoxications  and  infec- 
tions, the  infusion  chiefly  by  inducing  an  associated  renal  activity, 
plays  the  part  of  diluting  and  washing  out  the  toxic  products." 
The  isotonicity  of  the  blood  and  the  concentration  of  solids  in 
the  liquor  sanguinis  (which  with  its  complex  composition  acts  as  a 
vehicle  for  the  transportation  of  the  solid  elements,  and  thus  be- 
comes the  main  food  carrying  body  to  the  tissues)  varies  consider- 
ably under  different  clinical  conditions,  and  at  the  present  time  we 
have  no  means  of  determining  it  for  the  individual  case.  Every 
tissue  cell  has  an  osmotic  pressure,  which  as  far  as  has  been  ascer- 
tained, seems  to  be  about  the  same  for  all  cells  (with  only  slight 
variation)  throughout  the  body ;  and  accordingly,  the  concentration 
of  the  liquor  sanguinis  will  remain  in  normal  individuals  about  the 
same  all  the  time,  so  as  to  give  a  constant  and  identical  pressure  from 
without  the  cell,  equal  to  the  osmotic  pressure  of  the  cell  itself. 
Hamburger  (Zeitschrift  f.  Biol.,  1889,  92,  97)  by  a  test  which 
depended  on  the  percentage  of  saline  which  failed  to  lake  the  red 
cells ;  and  another  worker,  who  by  the  determination  of  the  freezing 
point  of  various  samples  of  blood,  were  able  to  determine  the  saline 
content  of  blood.  The  latter  experiments  were  performed  by  ob- 
serving the  freezing  point  of  blood  in  a  Beckmann  apparatus.  From 
