For a long time there is a raging debate whether crystalloid solutions or colloid solutions are better suited for fluid therapy. Early proponents both for crystalloids [Shires 1961] and colloids [Shoemaker 1979] deserve credit for elucidating important facts about volume replacement therapy - without answering the primary question. Elaborate reviews comparing crystalloid and colloid therapy for critically ill patients have been performed in the late nineties and updated recently [Roberts 2004]. However, it has been suggested that both questions and answers of reviews leave us none but wiser [Webb 1999]. Although a plethora of studies comparing crystalloid vs. colloid therapy in the last decades have been published, volume replacement therapy is still considered to be based on dogma and personal beliefs [Boldt 2003].