Peabody,1 in 1913, found that adult patients with lobar pneumonia showed a markedly diminished excretion of calcium, sodium and chlorids, while the excretion of potassium and magnesium was normal throughout the disease. He also reported that the calcium and chlorids were present at a lower level in the blood stream during the febrile period, rising to normal a few days after the crisis. His findings in regard to the chlorids have been confirmed, but as regards the calcium, corroborative evidence is lacking. The method employed was probably not nearly so accurate as our present day methods.
We have been able to find only a few isolated determinations of the inorganic constituents of the blood in pneumonia. Kramer, Tisdall and Howland2 report normal values for calcium in the serum. Denis and Talbot3 found figures which range from 2 to 12 mg. per hundred cubic centimeters of plasma. Kramer