OF ALBUMINURIA. 11 



nutrition of the foetus continues during gestation, 

 till parturition having taken place, the necessity for 

 it ceases, and the arteries remitting their abnormal 

 action the newly organised tissues become gradually 

 absorbed. According to this view of the process, 

 inflammation can only be considered as the extreme 

 degree or improper application of a natural and 

 healthy action ; and hence the term as usually meant 

 to signify a disease is not perhaps applicable to the 

 processes of reparation or adhesion, and should only 

 be used when speaking of those cases in which the 

 congestion is either very acute, or occurs in parts 

 where, or under circumstances when, its continuance 

 is likely to disturb the nervous system and thus 

 affect the health of the individual, or to prove in- 

 jurious or inconvenient from the effects to which it 

 may give rise. 



But there are two instances of the appearance of 

 albumen in secretions naturally not containing that 

 principle, which bear still more directly on the sub- 

 ject under consideration. 



In cows it is a well known fact that when the 

 mammary vessels become distended from the in- 

 creased determination of blood to them about the 

 time of parturition, the fluid first secreted, termed 

 colostrum, is scanty and bloody, and that it after- 

 wards flows in greater quantity and not discoloured 

 from blood, and is then so highly albuminous as to be 

 used in domestic economy as a substitute for eggs, 

 becoming a solid mass on boiling. Here the same 

 explanation is available : the arteries acting with 

 unusual power force a great quantity of blood into 



