Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

33/440 (page 17)

between albuminous substances and ferments, even supposing tliat tbe latter could be obtained in a pure state, inasmucli as Seegen and Kratschmer's (23) inrestigations sliow tbat substances unequivocally albuminous may exhibit diastatic properties. Moreover, Leube, who in examining the urine of twenty-one healthy men, found albumen in the alcoholic precipitate in fourteen instances, distinguishes the latter from the diastatic ferment, since in four of those fourteen cases albumen occurred alone, and in seven out of the twenty-one only the ferment was demonstrated. In its reactions the albumen resembled paralbumen (24). Be this as it may, there are now additional observations with regard to the occurrence of albuminuria in healthy men. That in these cases the substance referred to is albumen in the ordinary sense, there is no room whatever for those doubts which were constantly evinced towards the statements of the older observers, such as Becquerel, Simon, C. Schmidt, and Oanstatt. In recent times such observations have constantly accumulated in proportion as urinary investi- gations have been more numerous, and conducted with greater care and more improved methods than formerly. I have already referred to these methods (see p. 14), and we may with certainty expect that as they become more frequently employed, the discovery of albuminuria will become much more common than hitherto. There is, however, at the pre- sent time a considerable number of observations of a trustworthy character and to a great extent demonstrative, although the most delicate methods have not always been employed, of the excretion of albumen going on in healthy men for a greater or less length of time, no sign of disturbed health showing itself while this was going on, and during an interval of some years. Cases of this kind have been noticed by Frerichs, J. Vogel, Ultzmann, Gueneau de Mussy, Leube, Gull, Moxon, Rooke, Dukes, Saundby, Edlefsen, Marcacci, Munn, Bull, Piirbriuger and Kleudgen (25). This large number of recent observers, a portion of whose discoveries were made quite accidentally, forbids us to suppose that this albuminuria forms a very rare exception or curiosity unworthy of consideration. Still more cogent in this respect is the proportionate frequency discovered by 2