Chloride Metabolism and Plasma Amino Acid Levels in Primary Atypical Pneumonia.

In pneumococcus pneumonia, a tendency to store excessive amounts of ingested salt and water during the acute stage and to excrete this excess following the crisis has been described by numerous observers (1 to 4). Another characteristic metabolic disturbance in this disease, noted by Farr et al. (5), is a depression of the plasma amino acid level, as measured by the ninhydrin technique (6), during the acute phase, with a rise to normal at the time of the crisis. In order to discover whether or not such disturbances occur in primary atypical pneumonia (7, 8) (so-called virus pneumonia, acute pneumonitis, etc.), chloride balances and plasma amino acid levels have been followed in 10 adult male patients, showing the common signs and symptoms of this disease.