CAUSE OF DEATH RESULTING FROM MASSIVE INFUSIONS OF ISOTONIC SOLUTIONS

Abstract

The therapeutic status of intravenous infusion has undergone an important revision in the last few years. Just as the discovery of blood groups and their interrelations early in the present century made possible the extensive use of blood transfusions, so, more recently, has the discovery of the so-called "pyrogenic factor" in the causation of "infusion reactions" and of methods for its elimination made feasible the extensive use of intravenous infusions. Prior to about ten years ago it was commonly held by well informed practicing physicians that intravenous injections were essentially dangerous because they always involved the risk of disrupting such compensatory mechanisms as those which maintain the acid-base balance, the osmotic tension and the viscosity of the blood. These mechanisms were conceived to be delicately balanced and easily upset. Accordingly, solutions for intravenous use were carefully compounded from "triple-distilled water" and if they were to be given in any considerable