Low-Sodium Diet and Free Fluid Intake in the Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure

Abstract

TRADITION is hard to break. Doubtless since the time of Adam, dropsy has been traditionally treated by the limitation of fluid intake, a natural result of the observation of the accumulation of water in the body tissues. Despite the assembly of clear-cut evidence in laboratory and clinic that restriction of common salt and of sodium in any form is much more important than is restriction of water, the practical application of this idea in effective form has been extremely slow. In a few places in this country where knowledge along this line was far more advanced than elsewhere, the usefulness . . .