STUDIES ON THE INORGANIC COMPOSITION OF BLOOD

Abstract

The recent development of methods of analysis for the inorganic constituents of blood, requiring only small quantities of material, has permitted investigation of normal and pathological metabolism of inorganic salts.The fact that blood volume is restored after hemorrhage by the inflow of body fluids, presumably differing in inorganic composition from plasma, suggested that the study of inorganic salt metabolism after hemorrhage should yield information of value.The disturbances in the acid-base relationships after hemorrhage, including changes in the alkaline reserve, also make evident the need for more information concerning the variations in the inorganic ions other than bicarbonate.An investigation was therefore undertaken to determine what changes take place in the inorganic composition of the blood of dogs after single and repeated hemorrhages.The inorganic composition of plasma differs so widely from that of corpuscles that analyses of whole blood without reference to cell composition and the relative proportion of cells and serum are of little significance.This becomes especially true in a series of analyses of the blood from one animal, because of the decrease in cell volume which results from repeated withdrawals of blood.Although the red blood corpuscles are generally regarded as impermeable to the cations, the evidence is insufficient to warrant the assumption that changes do not occur in the sodium and potassium concentrations in the corpuscles.The necessity of studying 689