The Abuse of Normal Salt Solution

The therapeutic value of a physiologic saline solution administered in large amounts either intravenously, hypodermically, or by the intestinal tract in certain pathologic conditions, characterized by changes, quantitative or qualitative, in the blood-plasma, has been so abundantly demonstrated by clinical experience that it requires no emphasis here. That under certain circumstances saline solutions are productive of great harm to the tissues of the body, and are even capable of producing death, is as true as it is of many other valuable therapeutic procedurers. It is my desire to call attention briefly to some of these conditions and to sound a noteoof warning against the thoughtless and indiscriminate use of this remedy. The apparent harmlessness of sodium chlorid, a salt which forms such an importanttpart of the fluids of the body, the fact that this salt is found so largely in practically all of our foodstuffs, the idea, altogether too prevalent,