OF ALBUMINURIA. 3 



Since studying this subject and arriving at the 

 conclusions which I am about to relate, I find that 

 the same hypothesis, as to the cause of albuminous 

 urine, has been thrown out by others ; but as it has 

 not yet to my knowledge been supported by a close 

 examination of all the cases in which albuminous 

 urine has occurred, and has been advanced in a 

 vague and undefined form, I trust that I may still 

 be allowed to claim a share in whatever credit the 

 fact of having first established a fixed and general 

 rule for the explanation of the presence of albumen 

 in the renal secretion may be considered to deserve. 



Dr. Williamson, in the last number of the " Edin- 

 burgh Medical and Surgical Journal," mentions this 

 hypothesis, viz. that albuminous urine is produced 

 by congestion of the kidney, but he seems to con- 

 sider it as occurring from a state of the lining 

 membrane of the pelvis, analogous to that of the 

 serous membranes in dropsy, or in other words from 

 a disturbance of the balance between exhalation and 

 absorption. As there is so much difference in the 

 structure and function of mucous and serous mem- 

 branes, the comparison, if I understood it correctly, 

 does not seem a good one. The same gentleman 

 also mentions a diseased condition of the blood, such 

 as that existing in scurvy, as likely to cause albu- 

 minous or bloody urine ; and the probability of such 

 an occurrence should be borne in mind in inves- 

 tigating the cause of albuminuria in any particular 

 case. 



Having now stated all the theories that I know to 

 have been advanced for the purpose of explaining 



B 2 



