Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/160

 Each individual case of albuminuria presents analogous problems. Can the serum decompose urine-albumen, or does it disintegrate the tissues of the kidneys? Is the normal tissue of kidneys decomposed, or only pathologically altered? Let us point out, at this stage, that the determination of the power of rotation of the serum may itself be sufficient to direct us towards various important observations. May there not be a hyper- and a hypoproteinæmia? Is there any albuminuria which is based exclusively on heteroproteinæmia? Bence Jones's albuminuria and the typical albuminuria of pregnancy very likely represent such cases. It would obviously be incorrect to designate such kinds of albuminuria as being conditioned by nephritis.

In this connection we would lay stress on the fact that eclampsia, and the toxæmias of pregnancy, present us with a fruitful field for researches on their special conditions. Up to the present it would appear that the prognosis of eclampsia is the more unfavourable, according as the decomposition of the proteins disharmonious with the plasma is the less complete. It goes without saying that we must not jump to broad conclusions on the strength of these observations. We have never ventured to assert that the deciding factor in eclampsia is the insufficient decomposition of the disharmonious substances; and,