Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

65/440 (page 49)

pressing it, and the temperature is to be taken in tlie rectum. As a general rule, in order to save time the oven was first slightly warmed, and after the introduction of the animal the temperature was more or less rapidly increased. In order to give sufficient air, the door was not quite closed, but left somewhat ajar. When the heat had been applied for a suffi- cient length of time, the temperature in the rectum was taken while the animal remained in the oven, but with the door open, or immediately after removal; then the bladder was emptied by pressure, and if no urine could be obtained, the animal was placed in a cage from which the urine could escape. Experiments made at the same time with a view of examining the urine as regards its correspondence with the measurements of pressure and its variations, are attended with some difficulty, which, however, may perhaps be over- come by using large animals, such as dogs. For various reasons, however, and for the most part extrinsic ones, I avoid experiments upon large dogs. I have made a few experiments with the view of measuring the pressure in small dogs, but which were not altogether satisfactory on account of the numerous unavoidable difficulties connected with the production of anassthesia in dogs. And in connec- tion with those few experiments in which it was sought to obtain urine from rabbits while estimating the pressure, there was this drawback that the excitement caused by handling the animal was a thing to be avoided; moreover, in the short interval, urine could not be obtained from the bladder for examination if the organ had been previously compressed. The secretion obtained from the ureters on one occasion was not free from an admixture of blood, which was attributable to the unavoidable irritation and injury of the mucous membrane. The result in all cases was, the production of albuminuria when the bodily temperature had been increased by 1*5—3*0 0. with sufficient rapidity, or the heat continued for a sufficient length of time, and where this symptom was normally present, it became more marked.-- ' I have already stated (p. 20) that even in animals the urine in the normal condition very often contains albumen. I found it in more than half the number of these I submitted to experiment, and even in those 4