Red indican urine : its clinical significance, the Metchnikoff theory / by Anthony Bassler.

  • Bassler, Anthony, 1874-
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Red indican urine : its clinical significance, the Metchnikoff theory / by Anthony Bassler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Visiting Gastro-enterologist to the Peoples Hospital; Attending Physician to the St. Mark’s Hospital Clinic, NEW YORK CITY. Five chromogens are met with in the urine—those from the bile and blood, and the three which represent the conjugate or ethereal sulphates. Of the latter, to which have been given the names indican, urohsematin (indigo- red) and urorosein, respectively, much has been written about the first, and too little about the second and third. The organic, conjugate, or ethereal sulphates are represented in the daily output of sulphuric acid in the ratio of about 10 for the preformed and 1 for the conjugated, the combined daily output of the preformed and conjugated combinations being between 2 and 3 grammes a day. Taking the substances from which they are derived (indol, skatol and phenol), it may be said that when the production of these in the body is in excess or is beyond the combining power of the oxidase of the hepatic, renal or general tissue cells, they are not firmly bound, and oxidize merely to the indoxyl compounds of potassium, in which forms they are found in the urine. The most thoroughly studied of these is the conjugate potassium indoxyl-sulphate, or indican, which is color- less, but which when treated with strong acids and oxidizing agents is decom- posed with the formation of indigo-blue, the color of which is easily recognized. Such urines are seen in cases in which anywhere in the body (as in the contents of the intestines, accumulations of putrid pus, septic peritonitis, empyema, etc.), a decomposition or putrefaction of albuminous substances is taking place. Begarding urohsematin and urorosein, however, no such definite statement can be made; at least, it can only be stated that these are more complex substances in their make-up than indican alone. While indican, urohsematin and urorosein are found in trivial amounts in urine from normal individuals, there is no doubt that when they are present in large amounts they have distinct clinical significance. In entering upon the consideration of those cases in w-hich the origin is intestinal, we find that these bodies have a direct importance in the production of such local conditions as the various forms of chronic enteritis and colitis, in which the mucosa and muscularis are rendered more or less atrophic; in the production of, first, an excess of secretion in the stomach with hypermotility and hypersensibility, and later on a depressing effect on secretion and motility, but not on sensibility (as