Formation of urobilin / by Vaughan Harley.

  • Vaughan Harley
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Formation of urobilin / by Vaughan Harley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    method of separating bilirubin from urobilin either in the urine or the faeces, and by means of the spectrophotometer he was able to estimate the amount of urobilin. He found that in obstruction of the ductus clioledoehus, from either calculi, morbid growths, etc., where no bile entered the in- testines, urobilin entirely disappeared from both the faeces and the urine, while immediately after the obstruction to the duct was removed, and the intestines again contained bilirubin, urobilin reappeared in the faeces and urine. From this he considered that urobilin is formed from the bile pig- ments in the intestine, from thence absorbed into the circu- lation, and then excreted with the urine. The following ex- periment seems to prove this point: A man w'’ marked jaundice, whose faeces contained no traces of urobilin, was given daily by a stomach tube from 25 to 125 g. of pig’s bile absolutely free from urobilin. On the second day after its administration urobilin appeared in the faeces, and on the third day it was detected in the urine. The administration of the bile being stopped, the urobilin disap- peared from the faeces and urine. Muller considered that the increase of urobilin during the absorption of large blood extravasations and in infectious diseases where blood destruction is going on is due to the blood pigment while passing through the liver being con- verted into bile pigment, and thus causing an excess of bile pigment, which in its turn gives rise to an increased formation of urobilin in the intestines and absorption of it from them. The result of Muller’s experiment supports Maly’s view that the urobilin met with in the urine is derived from the urobilin formed in the intestines by the reduction of bile pig- ment. I will now adduce some experiments of my own on the form- ation of urobilin in the intestines, and show that the in- crease of urobilin in the intestines must be accompanied by an increase of intestinal bacteria to produce any marked in- crease of urobilin, and by increased intestinal putrefaction, without increase of bile, urobilin may be increased in the urine. Whether or not under certain pathological condi- tions it can also be formed in the tissues or blood I am not at present prepared to discuss. Schmidt5 showed that when a concentrated solution of perchloride of mercury is applied either to wet or dry fseces 5 Schmidt, Verhandlunyen d. Congress./, innere Medicin, 1895, p. 330.
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