The Time That the Breath Can Be Held as an Index for Acidosis

The importance of acidosis in connection not only with diabetes but also with renal, cardiac and other diseases is being increasingly recognized. For practical clinical purposes it is essential, however, not merely to recognize the condition but also to be able to measure its intensity and to follow its variations— both those spontaneously occurring and those therapeutically induced. For this purpose, determination of the carbon dioxid content of the pulmonary air is rapidly coming to be recognized as the most accurate available method. In principle such a determination may be roughly said to assume that the sensitiveness of the respiratory center is normal and constant, and that the blood stimulus to it is composed of two factors, namely, carbonic acid (CO2), and other acids (or deficiency of alkali). Whenever the former is found to be automatically decreased below normal, the latter is thereby indicated as above normal; in other