Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

110/440 (page 94)

Wo know that globulin along with serum-albumin is found in tho urine in very variable quantities^ so that we might perhaps suppose that, according as the albumen of the renal parenchyma is mixed with the urine, this latter secre- tion will contain more or less globulin in proportion to the serum-albumin. Our defective insight into the chemical pro- cesses of living and decaying cells does not allow us to do more than indulge in guesswork on this point. But it appears justifiable to mention it, for it is in these forms of albuminuria which are connected with rapid and severe epithelial decay, that the albumen exhibits several reactions differing from those ordinarily met with. This is, however, not the only possible means of explaining the occurrence of unusual forms of albumen in the urine, for there is another and a more probable explanation, viz. that the substances in question may be conveyed to the kidneys with the blood, in consequence of some change in the com- position of that fluid. We shall now discuss this subject, so far as the change alluded to has any influence in the pro- duction of albuminuria. V. The Condition op the Blood as iNPLUBNCiNa the Production op Albuminueia. That albuminuria is caused by an abnormal condition of the b)lood, is the oldest view, and the same which Cotugno, the discoverer of albumen in the urine, suggested, and which his contemporaries and immediate successors adopted and dis- seminated ; and this theory necessarily remained unshaken so long as observers were ignorant of the connection between albuminuria and dropsy and renal disorders. But the views of physicians were dominated by this theory even for some time after the connectiou between these conditions was discovered by Dr. R. Bright; subsequently, however, it lost its promi- nence, as the progress of investigation led to the discovery of various disorders of the kidney in states of disease accompanied by albuminuria, while little or no further knowledge was gained with regard to the supposed alterations