LEAD POISONING

Abstract

The application of the principles of physical chemistry to biologic phenomena has elucidated a great many physiologic and pathologic processes and has often led to rational and successful therapy. A noteworthy example of this is the derivation by Henderson from the classic law of mass action of the well known equation which expresses the relation of the bicarbonate and carbonic acid concentration of the blood to the hydrogen ion concentration. In this way was furnished the key to the behavior of the buffers of body fluids under normal and under pathologic conditions. Another illustration is the experimental demonstration that physicochemical laws explain certain phenomena which occur in vitro in a tissue, such as rachitic cartilage, which is bathed in serum containing the slightly soluble salts of calcium, the phosphate and carbonate. Thus the clinical problems of acidosis and alkalosis and certain phases of the complex process of normal and metastatic