The method of treating severe diabetic intoxication which is used at present in the St. Louis Children's Hospital may be recommended for the following reasons: (1) It provides a rapid, yet safe, method of restoring the normal acid-base balance of the blood in its broadest sense; (2) it leads to rapid abolition of ketosis, hyperglycemia and glycosuria, and (3) it can be carried out as a simple routine by a standardized procedure, requiring usually but from thirty to sixty minutes and little or no assistance from the laboratory (with the possible exception of an occasional determination of carbon dioxide content necessary for establishing with certainty the diagnosis of diabetic acidosis). The essentials of the treatment are the immediate administration of insulin, repeated in six hours, and the immediate parenteral administration of adequate amounts of rapidly available alkali in the form of isotonic racemic sodium lactate and of electrolyte in the