Acid and Basics: A Guide To Understanding Acid-Base Disorders

This book presents, in a user-friendly form, a guide to the understanding of acid-base physiology and clinical disorders of acid-base balance. The unique feature of this book is that instead of the traditional description of proton and bicarbonate behavior as vectors, this book relies on physical metaphors_ exchangers, pumps and ion channels _ in much the same way as the heart is understood as a pump and the lungs as a bellows. This presentation is strongly supported by the present understanding of the shape and function of these transport proteins.