Diseases of metabolism and of the blood : animal parasites, toxicology / ed. by Richard C. Cabot ... An authorized translation from "Die deutsche klinik" under the general editorial supervision of Julius L. Salinger, M. D. With one colored plate and fifty-eight illustrations in the text.

  • Cabot, Richard C. (Richard Clarke), 1868-1939
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of metabolism and of the blood : animal parasites, toxicology / ed. by Richard C. Cabot ... An authorized translation from "Die deutsche klinik" under the general editorial supervision of Julius L. Salinger, M. D. With one colored plate and fifty-eight illustrations in the text. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    With more justice, Voit's requirement of 118 grams of albumin has been the subject of dispute. In the discussion regarding this amount there has been much difference of opinion. In their conception of the main point in dispute, the views of different authors were diametrically opposed; and the conflicting opinions which arose in consequence of this have kept the discus- sion alive to the present time. In the food of man, which consists of albumin, fat and carbohydrates, the albumin bodies grouped in contrast to N-free substances are especially important. While the latter may be compensated for to a great extent by each other and also by albumin, according to the measure of their energy value, a certain quantity.of albumin in the daily food is irreplaceable and indispensable if the proteids of the body are to be maintained intact. To determine this indispensable amount of albumin, the minimum which the body requires to maintain the living substance in a functioning condition has been the subject of much discussion. For a time it was believed (Bidder and Schmidt) that this albumin mini- mum corresponded with the albumin-metabolism of persons kept in a state of starvation, i. e., that the nitrogen excretion in starvation furnishes a stand- ard for the nitrogenous metabolism necessary to maintain life, that is, the actual albumin requirement of the body. All the albumin absorbed from the intestine in excess of this was to be considered luxury, and was supposed, like the N-free substances, to undergo prompt combustion in the blood without becoming organized at all. Among clinicians, no less a one than Frerichs upheld this theory of lux- ury combustion/' propounded by C. G-. Lehmann. Ynit opposed the luxury theory. In his Handbook of the Physiology of Total Metabolism (page 269) he devotes a special chapter to contradicting this, and furnishes convincing proofs. According to experiments made in the dog, which of course are to be inter- preted somewhat differently from human experiments and which in their general application to man have been attacked by some investigators, the smallest quantity of albumin which will maintain the nitrogenous equilibrium of the body (on a mixed diet with X-free food substances) is usually 2^ to 3 times larger than the nitrogenous metabolism in starvation. In their com- prehensive experiments E. Voit and Korkunoff1 still found the minimum albumin-requirement to be 111 per cent, greater than the nitrogenous metab- olism in starvation (and even with very large amounts of starch in the food). It may therefore be considered as proved that if we give a dog only the amount of proteid which is decomposed in a state of starvation, this amount is llMt Bufficienl to maintain the nitrogenous equilibrium of the body. In man the same appears to be true. With sufficient food, the excretion of urea is increased decidedly above the starvation figures. From this experi- ence, and upon the basis of investigations on the nutrition of a large number of workmen. Voil computed as a standard for any sufficient diet the above- i /•;. I oil .-in,] Korkunoff, Die geringste zur Erhaltung des Stickstoffgleichgewichtes nöthige Menge von Eiweiss. Zeitschr. f. Biol., xxxii, p. 58.