Abstract
During the last few years increasing attention has been given to the electrolyte content of tissues (particularly heart tissue). Some time ago we began a study with the purpose of comparing the electrolyte content of tissues from cases with renal disease with that of tissues from patients who had died with other diseases. At present our series does not include a sufficient number of renal cases to make this comparison significant. That is, since the electrolyte content of a given tissue may vary quite widely, a fairly large number of cases must be obtained. Therefore, the purpose of the present report is to present a summary of the results which have been obtained on a series of miscellaneous cases.
The tissues (right ventricle, left ventricle, skeletal muscle, kidney, liver and spleen) were analyzed for water, chloride, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium in a manner similar to that outlined by Cullen and Wilkins, 1 Table I presents the maximum, minimum and average values found. The parentheses indicate the number of cases used in computing the average. It will be seen that in addition to the analyses made by Cullen, Wilkins, and Harrison 2 and Wilkins and Cullen, 3 the present study includes the determination of the electrolyte concentration of spleen, the determination of the calcium and magnesium concentrations of kidney and liver and the determination of the sodium concentration of muscle, kidney and liver. The difference between the electrolyte content of right ventricle and left ventricle has already been discussed by the above workers. The data of the present series are in agreement with their findings with the exception that the average magnesium content of the right ventricle is slightly greater than that of the left ventricle.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.