The sea, ‘blue blood’, the biologist and the old sea-dog.

This is the story of a remarkable experiment that should have elevated a stray mongrel called “Sodium” to canine glory, on par with Laika, Marjorie, and Pavlov’s nameless dog.

Simultaneously it is the story of a French biologist Rene Quinton who through his experiments, of which “Sodium” was one, formulated treatment that cured tens of thousands of children in France and Egypt of the most virulent diseases of the time including infant cholera, gastro-enteritis and infant athrepsia.

It is also the story of our ancestry, our literal bloodline which is as “blue” as any Spanish Infanta or English Queen.

Finally it is the story of the Sea herself, the planet’s life giving womb where we must first begin:

The early Oceans were not the Seas we know today; in fact they were not salty at all but a lifeless sweet water desert. It was only through eons of rains that the minerals from the rocky continents washed their valuable elements into the water, and gradually over the history of our planet the Sea has grown ever more tasty with the salts of the land.

The early Oceans contained a far weaker concentration of the elements that exist today. That is because today’s seas have endured eons of evaporation and concentration of the elements by constant land erosion. The salinity of seawater today is on average 35 parts per thousand (3.5%) with some seas like the Mediterranean one of the saltiest at 3.8%. In the Proto-seas the salinity was only 0.9%

What has remained constant however is the proportion of the elements which exist now and that which was found then. Every single trace element that exists on earth is found in seawater, and it is in the same proportion now as back in the proto-seas when life first appeared

How exactly the mysterious protoplasm of early life formed is unclear. Yet the basic principles have been established. In the chemical soup of the early sea a molecule gained the ability to make copies of itself, some were faithful reproductions while others differed slightly, and if Darwin is to be trusted a process of evolution began which continues to this day.

Gradually simple cell creatures began to evolve. The simplest ones carried out their basic functions of ‘breathing’ ‘feeding’ and ‘excretion’ through osmosis of seawater, their internal components being seawater itself. Gradually some developed a canal through which sea water passed bringing in nutrients and gases from the ‘mouth’ and filtering it out the other end.

Eventually as life evolved, these simple circulatory systems evolved too and today all fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals carry in our veins a salty stream in which all the elements that are present in sea water are there in our blood-plasma in exactly the same proportions as sea water. The sea became our blood.

Just as we evolved from the sea’s womb which was 0.9% salinity, each one of us re-enacts this process of creation when we evolve from gill breathing embryo in our mother’s (0.9% saline) amniotic fluid to air breathing man, with a blood-plasma of 0.9% salinity containing the same proportion of elements from sodium to potassium to gold, as the sea herself. If you’ll allow me my metaphor, we all have blue blood.

So where does the old sea dog “sodium” come into our story, and just why was he so important? To be fair “sodium” probably never voyaged out to sea, rather he was to take a different journey, like his very distant ancestors the marine protoplasm, where the sea was to voyage through him. “Sodium” became the experimental proof that our blood-plasma truly evolved from the sea by having his complete blood replaced by sea water.

The experimenter was French Biologist Rene Quinton (1867-1925) Who described this experiment, amongst others in his chief scientific work “ L’eau de mer, milieu organique” Sea Water, organic medium, (published by Masson 1905, and 1912)

The experiment with “Sodium” took place in 1897, an account of which follows:

“This experiment involved withdrawing a quantity of blood plasma of a [mongrel] dog, and replacing it with an equal quantity of 0.9% isotonic seawater (seawater diluted from a 3.5% salinity to a 0.9% salinity with distilled water). No special precautions were made to prevent infection. The dog was to be placed at death's door, so that this would demonstrate whether the isotonic water was a perfect [replacement] copy of the dog's blood plasma.

"Withdrawal of most of his blood from the femoral artery, during 4 minutes, without any [antiseptic] precautions, the corneal reflex halted. Presented with the impossibility of withdrawing any more blood, the injection of seawater began. The corneal reflex was restored. The untied animal was unable to walk, breathed with difficulty, with short breaths and remained stretched out on a blanket without moving." 

"After 21 hours, the dog trots around the laboratory. The red blood cells have dropped from 6,800,00 before the treatment [experiment] to 2,900,000; white blood cell level is at 15,400 from a previous 14,000, the hemoglobin has decreased from 19 to 12. These results are a witness to the enormous withdrawal of blood, yet, the animal eats and drinks." 

 After 48hrs."The condition of the dog changed: the wound discharged puss, the body temperature rose to 40 degrees C., and the condition looked grave, the animal sad and depressed. Now it was to be seen whether the organism, impoverished by the withdrawal of blood could overcome the infection with the seawater and accomplish leukocytosis [manufacture of white blood cells}. After 72hrs "Although the condition continued to look grave, the red blood cells were now at 3,020,000, the white blood cells at 24,000,000 and the hemoglobin at 16. Leukocytosis had been accomplished at a ratio of 1:484 vs. 1:125 before the procedure. That same evening, the dog ate 400 grams of meat." 

Thereafter, the progress was rapid. On the eighth day, the dog became exaggeratedly exuberant, ran about wildly and this continued during the following days. Five years later, Sodium, named after the memory of the experiment, was still alive and well. 

(The above results were replicated in May 1969 by Dr. B. Pourrias and Dr. G. Raynod.) 

In Similar though less dramatic experiments Rene Quinton, was able to sustain white blood cells extracted from fish, lizards, rabbits and man and keep them alive for 25hrs in non sterile seawater plasma, and upwards of a month in sterile solutions. In all cases the white blood cells presented all the signs of vital normal life.

Quinton went further however and postulated that both isotonic seawater-plasma and isotonic seawater taken orally can have a therapeutic effect on many conditions by bringing into equilibrium trace elements that were depleted in our blood and “strengthening” white blood cells to fight off disease.

Quinton opened 14 healthcare centres around France treating many conditions such as Cholera, gastro-enteritis, eczema, and colitis with nothing but isotonic sea water. His techniques were adopted in several countries around Europe where they achieved similar success. He traveled to Egypt where he successfully treated thousands of children suffering cholera using again just isotonic seawater.

“Sodium” like Quinton have remained largely unknown, yet few can doubt the significance of their discovery. How they showed us that not only can seawater re-establish the perfect balance of trace elements in our blood and cure us of many ills, but also that we still carry part of the sea that gave life to us in our veins.