EFFECTS OF DIET ON THE PLASMA CHLORIDES AND 
CHLORIDE EXCRETION IN THE DOG. 
By J. HAROLD AUSTIN anp LEON JONAS.* 
(From the William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine, University of 
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.) 
(Received for publication, October 17, 1917.) 
In the study of the plasma chlorides in a series of nephritics 
Wolferth (1) recently called attention to the low figures occasion- 
ally observed in certain cases. As a rule, this finding was noted 
in patients who had been for some time upon a chloride-free diet. 
This observation we (2) have confirmed and have found the 
plasma chlorides as low as 4.6 gm. per liter in one case of ad- 
vanced glomerulonephritis, 5 days before death. That this 
marked depression of the plasma chlorides might be merely the 
result of a long continued low chloride diet combined with a 
rather free administration of water seemed to us possible in spite 
of the well recognized tendency of the blood to maintain con- 
stant its inorganic composition. It was observed that in other 
cases with chronic nephritis, especially those of the so called 
parenchymatous type, which exhibited a tendency to elevation 
of the plasma chlorides, even a prolonged period of low salt 
diet did not bring the plasma chlorides below normal or often 
even to the normal figure. These, however, do not afford satis- 
factory evidence of the effect of a continued low chloride diet on 
the plasma in other diseases of the kidneys or when the kidneys 
are normal. 
In order to obtain some data upon the point the following 
experiments were carried out upon dogs. The animals were 
placed upon one of three diets; an ordinary diet, a diet with a 
high sodium chloride content, or a diet poor in sodium chloride 
and with a free administration of distilled water. After a vari- 
* Woodward Fellow in Physiological Chemistry, William Pepper Lab- 
oratory of Clinical Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. 
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