The Regulation of Acid-Base Balance

Excerpt The regulation of acid-base balance has fascinated many clinical scientists from the time they were medical students. Michael Crichton, a Harvard Medical School graduate who became a fiction author, used acid-base balance inThe Andromeda Strainas the common link between the diabetic ketoacidosis of an alcoholic man and the respiratory alkalosis of a crying baby as the mechanism protecting these individuals against an extraterrestrial virus. Perhaps the 24 contributors to the book by Seldin and Giebisch were similarly fascinated by acid-base disorders. The book provides detailed accounts of the basic mechanisms of acid-base disorders with practical, albeit brief, information...