The origins of the “salt solution” for intravenous (IV) fluid resuscitation are attributed to the Scottish physician William O’Shaughnessy, who in 1831 recommended the use of a dilute salt solution to treat the profound hypovolemic shock of cholera.1 The first use in a patient followed shortly thereafter, when Thomas A. Latta administered a warmed IV solution of “two drachams of muriate, two scruples of carbonate of soda to sixty ounces of water”2p257 as salvage therapy to patients dying of cholera at the Leith Infirmary in Scotland.