The Effect of Streptococcus Hemolyticus Infection on the Reaction of the Blood of Rabbits

Abstract

It has been amply demonstrated by many workers using a* wide variety of methods of examination that the reaction of the blood remains constant in health and is subject to slight actual variations in disease. Human blood is faintly alkaline and expressed in a physicochemical sense has a hydrogen-ion concentration only slightly less than that of pure water. As determined by its dissociation into hydrogen and hydroxyl ions, pure water at 20 C. contains approximately 1-10,000,000 gm. of hydrogen ions to the liter and an equivalent amount of hydroxyl ions; in other words, pure water is 1-10,000,000 N acid and also 1-10,000,000 N alkaline. This reaction is conveniently expressed in terms of the hydrogen-ion concentration by the use of logarithmic exponents, such as 10 -7 or as suggested by Sorensen 1 as Ph 7. When human blood is titrated by electrometric methods its reaction is found to be Ph 7.45, and the limits of variation to be well within Ph 7.0 and Ph 8.0. The neutral point Ph 7.0 is reached only in severe acidosis (as a terminal finding) and the limit of alkalinity Ph 8.0 only after the prolonged administration of alkalies. This precise regulation of the reaction of the blood constitutes one of the great constants of the body. The acid radicals produced through the oxidation of carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus in the food under normal conditions and in large part the acid radicals which arise through deranged metabolism in disease are either oxidized or neutralized in the body and then excreted or excreted unchanged. The fixed bases in the food and the ammonia arising from protein metabolism furnish bases for such neutralization, and the excretion of carbon dioxid by the lungs and of acid by the kidneys complete the mechanism. In addition the blood itself is able to take care of considerable quantities of either acid or alkali without change in its reaction through the buffer action