The Therapeutic Uses of Sea Water Part I: The Effect of Injections of Sea Water in Scabies *A preliminary note read before the Military Medical Club, Bangalore, September 1945, and Indian Science Congress, Bangalore, Session January 1946, and in an abstracted form at the Indian Science Congress, Patna, January 1948. This work was done in a military hospital.

It was pointed out by us (Chowhan, 1941) that epileptic attacks and mental disturbances in man may be due to imbalance of mineral constituents of blood leading to disturbances in the water balance of the body. The knowledge that the mineral contents of sea water are more or less similar to that of body juices lead to the consideration that injections of sea water would be beneficial in the treatment of some of the mental conditions. Before venturing the parenteral therapy of sea water in human being, steps were taken to find out whether an injection of sterile sea water into the animal organisms would cause any systemic disturbances. Venkatachalam et al. (1943) tried intravenous injections of sea water in a few dogs which were used as experimental animals. In another batch of animals intraperitoneal injections were given. Such injections produced no untoward effects in these animals. In the case of one animal which happened to be suffering from Canine mange, it was noted that the animals got completely rid of this disease. The raw patches healed up and their hair began to grow rapidly on the denuded areas. Further trials were made on 20 animals suffering from Sarcoptes scabie and 30 animals suffering from follicular type of mange and one bull suffering from ringworm. All of these animals were cured of their lesions. These animals were given intravenous or intraperitoneal injections of filtered and sterilized sea water in doses of % c.c. per kilo body weight. A maximum dose up to 20 c.c. was tried on alternate days without any untoward effects.