DURING the two-year period of 1950 and 1951, 289 patients with infantile diarrhea were admitted to pediatric department B of the Rambam Government Hospital in Haifa, Israel. All cases of infantile diarrhea which were accompanied by signs of dehydration and acidosis and which called for intravenously administered fluid therapy have been included in this study. We have not included all the milder cases of infantile diarrhea in which no parenterally administered fluid therapy was required and in which the condition improved with the aid of oral administration of fluids only. In other words, this study concerns only cases of infantile diarrhea of a moderate to a severe degree.
We have further confined this study to cases in infants up to 2 years of age, and not above this limit as has sometimes been done by other investigators. We would here point out that the group of children concerned was remarkable