Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

41/440 (page 25)

25- fluid whicli escapes from the glomerular vessels of the kidney did not contain albumen. It is true that we assume that this fluid is in reality only a transudation, that is, pressed out by filtration, but not a product of secretion, and in this we are in complete harmony with the general opinion.^ Quite lately Heidenhain alone has- expressed a different opinion to the effect that the process which goes on in the kidney is a real secretion, just as that of other glands, since the excretion of water in the kidneys depends upon the functional activity of those cells of the glomerular vessels, the quantity of blood contained in them in a unit of time determining the rate at which the process is carried on. The function of these cells is, therefore, the- separation of water (and of the salts by which it is always accompanied) and the prevention of the passage of albumen from the blood. When this function is interfered with, as may occur when the flow of blood through the arteries is checked for a short time, water is separated in smaller quantity and the secretion contains albumen. Heidenhain himself does not attempt to conceal the difficulties connected with this assertion, and, indeed, it is very difficult to attribute the possession of secretory glandular activity to epithelial cells, such as those which cover the glomerular vessels, and are altogether different in their nature from that of all known glandular cells. A greater objection, however, to this assumption is formed by the condition of the secretory func- tion of the kidney, when the blood-pressure is increased without diminution of the flow through the arteries, a state of things which may result from impeded discharge from the veins, the heart's action remaining undisturbed, or from, active congestion under conditions of increased afflux without any impediment to the escape of blood. In the first case, the rapidity of the flow is checked, in the second, it is increased. According to Heidenhain the retardation of the ' Euneterg, who very justly refers to the fact that all'normal and. pathological transudations contain albumen, nevertheless asserts, in contra- diction to this statement, that epithelial membi-anes do not permit albumen to pass through them, and for proof of this he relics upon the tears and the- perspiration. Both of those, however, are not transudations, but secretions. It may also be remarked in passing that albumen has been found in both.