378 Influence of Inanition ox Metabolism. 



volume of urine eliminated, but with a very considerable increase in the 

 nitrogen. When the total quantity of urine for the first 12 hours of the first 

 and last days of this experiment are taken into consideration a similar 

 peculiarity may be observed. On the first and fourth days of experiment No. 75, 

 in the first 12 hours there was a marked increase in the volume of urine 

 accompanied by an actual decrease in the elimination of nitrogen. Similar 

 anomalies are to be found in all of the experiments. It is clear, therefore, that 

 the deduction that large volumes of urine induced by copious water drinking 

 result in an invariable increase in the quantities of nitrogen excreted can not 

 be made from the results of the Middletown experiments. It may be said, 

 moreover, that the other conditions surrounding the experiment, namely, state 

 of nutrition, body-weight, etc., vary too much in the different experiments to 

 permit the deduction that copious water drinking does not affect the excretion 

 of nitrogen. 



Comparing the excretion of the day and the night periods in all the experi- 

 ments given in table 199, there was on the average a greater excretion of 

 nitrogen during the day than during the night. Considering the individual 

 days, there were only two exceptions to this, namely, on the first day of experi- 

 ment No. 69 and on the last day of experiment No. 89, on both of which days 

 the excretion was somewhat greater during the night period. In one case the 

 excretions for the day and for the night were identical. It is furthermore 

 true that the volume of urine was, in general, greater during the day than 

 during the night, there being but one exception to this, namely, on the second 

 day of experiment No. 59. 



In general, the larger amount of nitrogen excreted during the day period from 

 7 a. m. to 7 p. m. appears in the urine from 7 a. m. to 1 p. m., and an inspection 

 of the volumes of urine shows that in experiments Nos. 73 and 75, the larger 

 volume of urine is collected as a rule in the second period (1 p. m. to 7 p. m.). 

 This is likewise true for experiment No. 59. In each of the experiments Nos. 

 68, 69, and 89, the volumes average about the same for both 6-hour periods of 

 the day. Only in experiment No. 71 do we find a noticeably larger volume of 

 urine during the first 6 hours. It is interesting to note that this difference in 

 the volume of urine is accompanied by a larger increase in nitrogen during 

 the first 6-hour period. 



Ratio of Total Solids to Nitrogex. 

 The nitrogenous ingredients of urine are of organic origin and hence the 

 larger the proportion of ash in the urine, the wider the variations in the ratio 

 of total solids to nitrogen. The ratios, however, are of particular interest as 

 use was made of certain of them in experiments Nos. 59 and 68 in apportioning 

 the amounts of total ash and total solids over the several days of the experiments 

 as explained above. The ratio of total solids to nitrogen or the number of 

 grams of total solids present in the urine for each gram of nitrogen is shown 

 in table 200. 



