This book deals with the hypertrophy of the adrenal cortex induced by the feeding of ammonium hydroxide to various experimental animals. In 1933, while performing an autopsy on a patient who died of ammonium hydroxide poisoning, the author observed fat emboli in the liver, kidneys and lungs. He was able to demonstrate on cats that protracted feeding of ammonium hydroxide induced severe acidosis with concomitant lipemia. He also observed that the combination of acidosis and lipemia constituted a common postoperative complication. Therefore, it occurred to him that the shift in the acid-base balance may play a role in the production of postoperative pneumonias.
In a great number of well controlled experiments on rabbits, cats, pigs and geese, Fazekas was able to demonstrate that chronic ammonium hydroxide feeding produced acidosis, hypertrophy and hyperfunction of the adrenal glands, elevation of blood pressure, decided increase of body weight, increase of hepatic and muscular