Volume 1

The science and practice of medicine / By William Aitken ... From the 4th London ed., with additions, by Meredith Clymer.

  • William Aitken
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science and practice of medicine / By William Aitken ... From the 4th London ed., with additions, by Meredith Clymer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

    87/972 page 77
    The most opposite statements have thus been made regarding the amounts of the excretions in fever, oompared with the quantity excreted in health; and at present many excellent observers bold that these excretions are always, and of necessity, increased; others, no less exact, affirm that they are invariably, or almost always, diminished. Such discrepancy of statement is due, in the Erst instance, to the difficulty of collecting and measuring exactly the amount of all the excretions. Two of the excretions, the cutaneous and the pulmonary, cannot be collected and measured with anything like the accuracy necessary in such an inquiry: even in health such an inquiry is difficult, and in fever it is almost im- possible. By careful and accurate observation at the bedside, however. Dr. Parkes has been able to obtain very close approxima- tive data to found his conclusions upon relative to the increase or diminution of the excretions. He assumes that when the respira- tion- are not quickened (i.e., about eighteen times in a minute, or about one act of respiration for every four beats of the pulse), and when the skin is not evidently sweating, the excretions by these two organs are not increased; and, on the other hand, an increased excretion by these organs may reasonably be inferred if the exer- cise of their function is unusually active, and if there are tolerably co]lions perspirations. The other two excretions, namely, the urine and intestinal discharges, can be measured with accuracy, and the urine in particular is a valuable index of the metamorphoses of tissue. The urea alone represents two-thirds of the whole quantity of nitrogen which passes off; the sulphuric acid (the sulphates of the food being accounted for) represents almost entirely the oxidation of sulphur; and the oxidized phosphorous of the body passes out in great measure, though not altogether, as urinary phosphoric acid. Therefore a careful examination of the urine, and of the intestinal discharges, with an approximative estimate of the pulmonary and cutaneous excretions, give sufficiently extensive and accurate mate- rials for the question at issue. The products excreted are thus of such a kind as to be eliminated. such researches, he is recommended to consult the work of Dr. Parkes On the Compo- sition of the Urine, and to follow the directions given on the Examination of thellrine, towards tin- end of the second volume of this text-book, for obtaining quantitative re- sults by the volumetric method. Average quantity of urine passed in twenty-four hours, . 52f to 56 ounces. Average amounts of solids . 945 grains. Urea . 512 Chlorine . 126.76 Free Acid . 33 Phosphoric Acid . 48.80 Sulphuric Acid . 31.11 Uric Acid . 8.5 Specific gravity, 10.20.
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