More RIpH-Reply
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Excerpt
In Reply. —The ghost of the "Great Trans-atlantic Acid Base Debate"1 roams again. Imagine my delight in being found in JAMA2 sandwiched between founders of acid-base physical chemistry: "In the days of Arrhenius, Severinghaus, and Henderson-Hasselbalch..." in Neiberger's letter. Henderson and Hasselbalch, the first transatlantic acid-base nomenclatura, never met to consummate their hyphen.3 At Harvard, Lawrence J. Henderson applied the mass action law to the CO2 HCO3 relationship (1907), while 10 years later, the Dane Karl Albert Hasselbalch wrote it in the logarithmic form (1917). Svante Arrhenius demonstrated ionization in a nearly disapproved thesis at Uppsala, Sweden, in 1884, which won him the Nobel Prize in 1903.4 Good company, both in age and distinction!
Why not switch from pH to H+, as Neiberger suggests? The H+activity, which is what is measured by a pH electrode, approximates the H+ ion concentration, but in no
