Hydrogen Ion Concentration in Exudates of Pneumococcus Infection

The hydrogen ion concentration in the lesions of experimental pneumococcus infection has been estimated directly by pH determinations on exudates from living animals. For indirect evidence of an increase in hydrogen ion concentration within the lesions, the difference in sugar content between exudate and blood from animals with pneumococcus infection has been measured. With sanguinous exudate from the consolidated lungs of dogs with experimental pneumococcus pneumonia, the findings were not always consistent, but usually there was either direct or indirect evidence of increased hydrogen ion concentration. The physicochemical changes in exudate from animals treated with artificial pneumothorax showed no important differences from those in other specimens. In concurrence with Lord's (1, 2) observation of increased acidity in pneumonia exudate obtained at autopsy, sugar concentrations, which are low in the blood, were markedly reduced in exudates from animals which had died of the infection. Serous exudates from dermal pneumococcus infection in rabbits uniformly showed definite acidity by both direct and indirect methods of estimation. The hydrogen ion concentrations in exudate from dermal pneumococcus infection in rabbits varied between pH 6.87 and 6.66 but were not always proportional to the difference in sugar concentrations between the exudate and blood. While these hydrogen ion concentrations are similar to those attained in the pneumonic exudate from dogs, they are of lesser magnitude than those which Takahashi (3) has described in the pus of secondary empyema due to the pneumococcus.