Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

61/440 (page 45)

by Ph. Munk. Correnti found albumen after simjDly tying the aorta; H. Cobn also, but only exceptionally, after removal of one kidney; Litten, after tying tbe aorta alone, found no albumen, and lie noticed the same result when both the coeliac and the superior mesenteric arteries were tied, slight increase of pressure being consequently induced. I myself have twice tied the aorta in rabbits, and subse- quently found the urine to be albuminous, but I also con- vinced myself of the very serious character of the operation. To avoid injury Stokvis has applied compression, externally through the abdominal wall, to the aorta in rabbits below the kidneys, by means of a belt fitted with a screw ; in two out of three cases the addition of nitric acid to the urine produced a slight cloudiness, which he did not consider to be albumen, but which could not, I think, have been any- thing else. No importance, however, is to be attached to- these experiments, for if in reality only the aorta were compressed below the kidneys, we could not, as above stated, expect with any degree of certainty that the blood-pressure in that vessel would be raised. As a matter of fact, how- ever, in these experiments, the pressure in the abdomen generally, and consequently the pressure to which the kidneys are subjected, must necessarily be increased, and must produce considerable congestion of those organs as a result, and we know that this condition is sufficient to cause- albuminuria (48). What, then, are the conclusions to be drawn from all these experiments ? Without raising the pressure in tho aorta (ligature of the aorta alone) one observer always finds albumen, another never finds it, a third discovers it occa- sionally, and traces of it only ; by raising the pressure (ligature of the aorta and ligature of, or checking the flow through, other arteries), albumen is constantly found by one experimenter and not by another. My own opinion is, that that series of experiments, as a result of which no increase of pressure can bo expected, really proves nothing; and that the albuminuria observed in connection therewith is to be ascribed to the above-mentioned injuries which are incidental to tho operation. In those expei'imcnts which are attended with real increase of the arterial pressure, one