Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

71/440 (page 55)

according to Zadek it amounts to from one-twelfth to one- sixth of the normal degree. It is therefore doubtful whether this increase can exercise any appreciable influence upon the transudation of albumen. Moreover, the albuminuria often observed during digestion cannot be attributed to increased pressure, for, as we know, the urine is increased in quantity while the process is going on. This albuminuria of digestion can be satisfactorily explained in another way, as will appear later on. (See V.) No methodical experiments have yet been made with the various poisons which raise the pressure in the aorta, such as, in addition to those previously mentioned (see p. 42) nicotine, picrotoxin, &c. ; only incidentally has albumen been observed in the urine during the employment of one or other of these remedies. For our purpose we can scarcely expect to obtain any definite explanations from such experiments as these, for when poisons of this kind are administed very different conditions co-operate, which make it difl&cult to connect causes and effects together. With regard in particular to the increase of pressure and its connection with albuminuria, we must take into consideration the fact that the increase depends upon a narrowing of the vessels when most of these substances are administered, and therefore proves just as little as other experiments based on the same process (see p. 42 et seq.) ; and likewise that these drugs often cause spasm of various groups of muscles, and exercise a disturbing influence upon the nutrition of the tissues, &c. A review of the total results of all these numerous expe- riments, having for their object the production of albumi- nuria by increasing the pressure in the aorta, produces the impression that the majority of the experiments have failed, and that the labour devoted to them has been, for the most part, expended in vain. The few trustworthy experiments performed with unequivocal results, and facts of a like im- port, and in harmony with the experiments observed, in the human subject, appear to justify the following conclusion, viz. that the increased arterial pressure in the kidneys per se produces, or may produce, albuminuria, if by the removal of water through other channels, the urine is simultaneously decreased in quantity below the normal amount.