Œdema and Nephritis: a Critical, Experimental, and Clinical Study of the Physiology and Pathology of Water Absorption in the Living Organism

Abstract

THIS is the second edition of a work which has already attracted some attention in the physiological world. The author's main theme is that dropsy is not due to disorders of the circulation, or to changes in osmotic processes but is wholly produced by the tissues themselves sucking up water from the blood, and that increase in acidity of the tissues is the sole factor in their being able to attract more water into their colloid structure. The main experiments upon which this theory depends were performed by placing dead frogs' legs and pieces of gelatin in fluids of different composition and reaction. Even the swelling which occurs in a limb when reflux of blood from it is prevented by occluding the veins is explained on the acid theory. Addition of such salts as sodium chloride to the experimental fluid lessens the amount of swelling; yet it is well known that excess of such salts favours dropsy during life. This is ingeniously explained by saying that the excess of salt lessens vital oxidative processes, and this leads to formation of acid, and therefore indirectly to œdema. The only piece of evidence advanced in favour of this view is that rabbits on an excessive salt diet become cyanotic; an impartial observer might quite reasonably argue that cyanosis may be the result of the dropsy.

Œdema and Nephritis: a Critical, Experimental, and Clinical Study of the Physiology and Pathology of Water Absorption in the Living Organism.

By Prof. M. H. Fischer. Second edition. Pp. X. + 695. (New York: J. Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1915.) Price 21s. net.