How this potentized preparation differs from a simple solution and by what means it can provoke new kinds of actions can be answered at present only by hypothesis. So might the increased distance between the NaCl particles or even into sodium and chloride ions be better obtained and maintained through the medium employed (milk sugar and later alcohol); in consequence the site of the first influence the tongue mucous membrane) can be of significance for its unusual working path. It would then be understandable that the preparation can provoke symptoms which are not observed from the usual introduction of larger amounts of sodium chloride even though the organism might be adapted for the usual form.
But the organism would so much sooner react to unusual preparation of sodium chloride with symptoms, the more labile the sodium chloride equilibrium was at the beginning. Disturbances in NaCl economy, or in sodium or chlorine equilibrium, alone will favor the effectiveness of the preparation. On this account it is necessary to learn the physiologic role of NaCl in the organism, the fact being that the normal and abnormal relation of NaCl in the organism designates the soil on which the preparation of NaCl can unfold special activity of medicinal effects.
PHYSIOLOGIC ROLE OF SODIUM CHLORIDE
On the step of mass action sodium chloride appears at first the most important factor and regulator for water balance. The behavior of water to dissolved particles, that is, the osmotic concentration or water concentration, will be especially strong and easily influenced by NaCl because NaCl has great span among the electrolytes of the body, as it also appears the strongest physiologically in the body fluids. Through sodium chloride the diffusion velocity of a solution is increased greatly, and so sodium chloride is the impulse factor also for the movement of body fluids. Sodium chloride is easily excreted and easily retained, will be absorbed dry or moist. From all these facts it is especially suitable for the maintenance of osmotic equilibrium. NaCl furnishes about 60 percent of the osmotic concentration of the blood. Because of its great breadth of adaptation it does not easily come to specific disturbance. For the understanding of this play of power between water and NaCl it must be grasped that sodium chloride (in contrast to KCl) is a constituent of the body fluids and the cell surfaces are quite impermeable to NaCl, at least for the sodium ion, while the chlorine ion can pass from outside in, and reverse.
Two materials, which physiologically work together as strongly as water and NaCl, appear as antagonists as soon as one attains predominance. The antagonism of a pair belonging together (also in itself synergistic) appears first when the effects are shifted one-sidedly. So water removes sodium chloride poisoning; and sodium chloride, water poisoning to a great extent. If, for example, one has effected a depression of diuresis with pure water, then it is overcome (to the point of isotonia) by a subsequent introduction of sodium chloride. The isotonia of the blood is protected against excessive amounts of water or sodium chloride to a remarkable extent; furthermore to assist in the regulation there are added such symptoms as thirst, dryness of the mucous membranes, hydremia and rapid excretion, chiefly through the kidneys with increased or diminished amounts of urine, according to the availability of water for excretion and the functional capacity of the kidneys. The chloride excretion by the sweat and faeces is slight in contrast to that of the kidneys. It is assumed that a transient deprivation of the cell of water from the introduction of excessive amounts of sodium chloride would not be without influence on the function of cells. Some alterations of intermediary metabolism could stand in connection therewith. So it has long been known that, after doses of concentrated salt solution, the urine becomes alkaline. Thereby the carbon dioxide capacity of the blood is lessened, there is a cumulation of fixed acids in the blood, and the acid excretion in the urine is reduced.
To the same field of action also belongs the increased nitrogen excretion from the introduction of hypertonic NaCl solution, which can be maintained for some days after the introduction of NaCl. Increased destruction of protein many also be responsible for the enrichment of the blood in fixed acids (reduction of CO2 capacity). Therein we think of the increased protein destruction and the emaciation in chronic misuse of salt. On the other hand, that NaCl with much water (that is markedly hypotonic amounts which are rapidly absorbed and therefore provoke a rapid transient hydremia) leads to a delay of protein transformation and also acts protein sparing, seems no contradiction; because it is concerned with a relative, transient NaCl deficiency.
The basal metabolism, also the oxidative processes, are increased through hypertonic NaCl solution. According to Verzar, the oxygen consumption is greater than the CO2 excretion, which signifies a decrease of the respiratory quotient (that is, a plus in the oxidative processes, over increased carbohydrate and fat burning).
H. Schulz conceives that in the organism chlorine through CO2 is made free from sodium chloride and then chlorine acts oxidizing. If this is not proven, still in any case, a marked oxidation may be presumed in the development of HCl from NaCl.
SODIUM CHLORIDE FEVER
Closely bound with the increase in protein destruction and the oxidative processes is the much studied sodium chloride fever. The increase of temperature through concentrated salt solutions in small children (either orally or parenterally in three-gram amounts) is observed. According to experimental studies on rabbits it is concerned with an increase in heat production and of protein transformation. From the fact that calcium compounds in small amounts suppress sodium chloride fever, one has falsely concluded that it is not a sodium ion action. Not a disturbance of the isoionia, and indeed a relative predominance of the sodium ions, is assumed as a cause. With other sodium salts, as the carbonate and phosphate, the fever is not obtained Likewise the fever goes parallel with the height of chlorides in the blood. Indeed, after the marked use of NaCl there is marked output of calcium. This is naturally a necessity of the organism for the maintenance of the fixed alkali reserve. Calcium is, as we know, a very general defense against cell intoxication through its thickening action. If one assumes that NaCl fever occurs through lessening of calcium action, then this would probably occur via the vegetative nervous system to the nerve centers. In agreement with this is the fact that the fever does not occur when the splanchnic nerve is cut and that (out side of calcium salts) the fever can also be suppressed by choline and pilocarpine. The last signifies an excitation of the para-sympathetic and one concludes reversely that NaCl induces an excitation of the sympathetic in the sense of adrenalin, and that adrenalin fever can be placed at the side of NaCl fever. Moreover, calcium here acts as an exciter of the parasymphathetic or a depressor of the sympathetic which is opposition to the usual presentation. It is primarily probable that the increase of temperature is to be ascribed more to the halogen anion than the sodium cation. The detoxification through calcium is not proof that it is concerned with a toxic action on the entire molecule of NaCl.
But there is still a further antagonism to be mentioned in respect to the two univalent ions, sodium and potassium. Biernatzky reports that the output of potassium is increased through the intake of sodium chloride. Since the potassium action in general corresponds to a parasymphathetic effect, then a prepoderance of the sympathetic would be explained by the introduction of NaCl. However, NaCl fever cannot be removed through potassium salts. Thereby the antagonism of sodium and potassium ions is chiefly conditioned in that sodium is the outer and potassium the inner ion of the cell.
If one perceives in the anisoinia the cause of the NaCl fever, then this still does not say that the intermediation of the disturbance over the sympathetic would be fundamentally different from the direct cell influence of NaCl. It is much more to be assumed that the alteration immediately on the cells corresponds to a febrile metabolism, that moreover the vegetative system actually only intermediates the process through the nerve regulatory centers as they play between sodium chloride molecules and cell receptor organs. We may assume as in the experimentally founded parasympathetic and cardiac muscle effects of potassium- that here also a physiologic circle exists in which the result is dependent upon where the NaCl acts at the disturbing moment. Thereby it is clear that other quantities and states of form are necessary on the receptive organs than on the nervous centers, in case a direct way can be found for the latter.
Leeser, a Consultant Physician at the Stuttgart Homeopathic Hospital and a member of the German Central Society of Homeopathic Physicians, fled Germany in 1933 after being expelled by the German Medical Association. In England Otto Leeser joined the staff of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. He returned to Germany in the 1950s to run the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart, but died shortly after.
Otto Leeser wrote Textbook of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Leesers Lehrbuch der Homöopathie, Actionsand Medicinal use of Snake Venoms, Solanaceae, The Contribution of Homeopathy to the Development of Medicine, Homeopathy and chemotherapy, and many articles submitted to The British Homeopathic Journal,