Abstract
Certain lines of enquiry in biological
chemistry have already yielded results such that a
coherent and plausible account can be given of the
phenomena involved and their relationships, though
doubtless in no case can the final story be told.
At the present time, however, our knowledge of calcium,
metabolism is fragmentary - we are still far from
being able to correlate the various experimental
results and employ them in the weaving of a single
harmonious hypothesis; the gaps are too great, and
much of what passes for knowledge is uncertain. As
a result of this almost chaotic array of contradictory
statements deranged calcium metabolism has been
suggested as the etiological factor in the most
diverse conditions, and this has in turn led to much
misdirected and futile therapeutic endeavour. The
object of this thesis is to put forward the results
which have been obtained by the author in his
investigations into several problems of calcium
metabolism, to correlate these with the results
obtained by previous workers, and to present a short
critical review of the more important and suggestive
papers on this subject as it is understood to-day.