Some problems of intermediary metabolism.

  • Chittenden, R. H. (Russell Henry), 1856-1943.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some problems of intermediary metabolism. 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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    are excluded from the diet. Many investigators* have shown experimentally that there is a certain degree of con- stancy in the output of uric acid on a non-purin diet, even when there are wide variations in the quality and quantity of the purin-free food. Various careful experiments, cov- ering fairly long periods of time, carried on in our laboratory by Dr. E. W. Kockwoodf on men taking only purin-free food, such as milk, wheat bread, butter, cheese, cereal, fruit, etc., showed a daily output of uric acid averaging 0.3—0.4 gram. Further, it was observed, in conformity with the thesis of Burian and Schur, that a given individual shows a certain' degree of constancy in the daily excretion of uric acid. In other words, the elimination of endogenous uric acid is constant for each individual; a. e., it is an indi- vidual factor dependent perhaps in part upon the weight of the body or the contained tissues and organs. It was a noticeable fact that the results obtained were not influenced in any measurable degree by the extent of muscular activity. As to the origin of this endogenous uric acid, it has long been taken for granted that it must come in part from the breaking down or metabolism of the nucleoproteids of the tissue cells, by the action of the same agencies that are effective in the formation of exogenous uric acid. There are, however, other possible methods not to be entirely overlooked : viz., the possibility of a synthetical production of the acid in the liver or elsewhere, and also the possibility of some other antecedent than the nucleoproteids of the glandular organs, leucocytes, etc., serving as the direct mother substance in its formation. Knowing the fate of the nucleoproteids of the food and the marked influence * Burian and Schur: Archiv. f. die gesammte Physiologie, Bund 80, p. 2*1; alao, Band 87, p. 239. ikandinavidchefl A-Hiiv fur Phyaiologie, Hand 11, ]>. 132. Wiener: Ergebninue der Phyeiologie, 1902, i, Part L, p. 858; Ibid., I , p. 877. • l Elimination of Endogenous Uric Acid. American Journal of ology, vol. 12, p,