Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

67/440 (page 51)

asserted with our present knowledge. We know from the experiments of W. Schmidt (52) and Bckhard (53) that the filtration of saline and albuminous solutions through animal membranes goes on with increased rapidity as the tempera- ture is raised, just as Poiseuille has found to be the case in filtration through glass capillary tubes, but unfortunately, we can draw no certain inference from Schmidt^s experiments, which specially related to albuminous solutions, as to what pro- portion the albumen in the filti'ate bore to that of the original fluid. If the percentage of albumen increased in the filtrate, this, as a matter of course, would alone suffice to explain the occurrence of albuminuria without any changes of pressure, whereas the latter alone entered into our considerations. I see, therefore, in these heating experiments, no irrefragable proof of the dependence of albuminuria upon an increase of blood-pressure, but certainly a support to this view, and one which taken in connection with other experiments pointing in the same direction give to it a weight by no moans in- considerable. In any case, these experiments support the theory, according to which filtration takes place in the capsules. There are, however, sundry other conditions which more -or less decidedly increase the blood-pressure in the aortic system, and serve as a test for our view—the most important of these is muscular action. Its influence in this respect has been so constantly observed since the introduction of the kymograph by Ludwig that there can be no doubt whatever in regard to it. Its influence upon the production of albuminuria has not, however, so far as I know, been experimentally investigated, but Litten in describing his above-mentioned experiments states that albumen often appeared in the urine as a consequence of the muscular action of the dogs while they were fastened, whereas the urine previously obtained through a catheter was free from albumen. On the other hand, in healthy men frequently after intense muscular exertion, in parturient women as a consequence of difficult labour (without any previous dis- order) albumen has been found in the urine (see p. 19), and also in pathological conditions, in convulsions of all kinds, but particularly in epilepsy, albuminous urine has been very