Salt and Water Balance [antikvár]

At the outset of this Symposium on Salt and Water Balance, I should like to introduce a few comments regarding its title and composition that need to be made and which, I hope, do not anticipate the primary assign- ments of the speakers. To any of you who have reflected on the title of the Symposium and the subject titles and speakers who make up the program, it should be clear that the subject of the Symposium is by no means covered by the titles of the papers. Indeed, to cover the subject of salt and water balance reasonably adequately we would need to design a series of symposia to run the course of this Third International Congress of Pharmacology. Moreover, we would need to invite our friends who are prominent in various phases of cardiac, vascular and extravascular physiology as well as nephrology at both a preclinical and a clinical level to lend perspective to this subject. Thus, for practical reasons, we are confined to a consideration of the modulation of renal functions by drugs that influences particularly salt and water excretion by the kidney, and to select an international group of speakers for this general subject. It is abundantly evident that with the advent of the thiazides almost 10 years ago the management of salt and water retention has been substantially improved from the point of view of both physician and patient alike. This is because the kidney, unlike any other organ, influences most profoundly the several electrolytes and water in the over-all maintenance of this fundamental aspect of homeostasis. It is also because these agents combined convenience of oral administration with a very practical order of potency, reliability and safety that was not available previously. The advantages and the shortcomings of these agents are so well known to the physician that we have elected to emphasize the preclinical attributes of other diuretics, some newer, some older. This is not to imply that there is unanimity among pharmacologists regarding the fundamental aspects of the thiazides, their mode and site of action in the nephron, their antihypertensive action, whether their effect on glucose