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The author of this most unusual volume attempts to show that such conditions as epilepsy, eclampsia, migraine, angina pectoris, bronchial asthma, allergic diseases, gout, essential hypertension, pernicious anemia, polycythemia, acne vulgaris, nervous and psychic disturbances, constitutional changes and aging have a common etiologic basis, namely, a disturbance in water and mineral metabolism. This disturbance may be either a generalized retention of water and salts or, as in migraine, angina pectoris and bronchial asthma, a local mobilization of fluids in the organs chiefly affected. The susceptibility of the person to such disturbances and the particular disease manifestation which results in any given case are supposed to depend on the "constitution" of the patient. The author enumerates and describes four such constitutional classes.
For all the aforementioned clinical conditions, the author advises "antiretentional" treatment. This, as the name indicates, is designed to cause the organism to excrete its excess of water and