THE ALKALOSIS OF VOMITING AND THE ACIDOSIS OF ADVANCED RENAL DISEASE

From these and a great many Expressions to the same Purpose, in that Book of Hippocrates, it is evident that that most sagacious of Physicians established it as a Maxim that these second Qualities viz. Acidity, Bitterness, Saltness and the like, conjoined with the Symptoms of Cold or Heat are chiefly to be considered as the principal and efficient Causes of Diseases. And hence, I think, I need not scruple to add that it naturally follows, that the Cure of Diseases does not so much consist in extinguishing any increased degree of heat by a cold regimen as in blunting the Acidity, edulcorating the Bitterness, or mitigating the too great Saltness of the Humors, as also in attenuating such as are thick, compacting such as are too thin and fluid, correcting the acrid and resolving the obstructed.— Harris: Upon the Acute Diseases of Infants, 1742. Our purpose in this paper