Chlorine in Urine. 417 



It thus appears that during fasting the excretion of chlorine may be con- 

 siderable on the first two days, a smaller amount appearing usually on the 

 second day. There is a marked decrease in the total excretion on the third 

 day. On the fourth day the elimination decreases to about 0.4 gram and 

 remains fairly constant for the three days following. 



The results obtained in these experiments are also of interest in discussing 

 the question of the existence of an excessive amount of chlorine in the body 

 over and above what is needed in the system. According to Munk's (7) con- 

 ception, man has become accustomed to much larger amounts of sodium 

 chloride than have actually been needed, and hence there is in the body an 

 excess which is rapidly eliminated on fasting. A more recent statement of 

 this view has been given by Magnus-Levy. 85 An examination of the data given 

 in table 215 shows that in nearly all the earlier experiments considerable 

 amounts of chlorine were excreted on the first days of the fast. In general, 

 the excretion diminished considerably after the second day. In practically all 

 cases, the excretion remained above 0.7 gram. The marked exceptions to this 

 in previously published work on fasting are the fifth and sixth days of the fast 

 of Breithaupt and the fifth, sixth, and seventh days of the fast of Flora 

 Tosca. On the basis of the results obtained on Cetti and Breithaupt, as well 

 as the earlier results on Succi, Munk contends that there is a considerable 

 accumulation of chlorine in the body which may amount to 10 or 15 grams. 

 This is excreted during the first days of fasting, after which the excretion 

 becomes constant. The data for the chlorine elimination on the later days of 

 the fast with Succi indicate that about one-half a gram of sodium chloride 

 was excreted per day. 



The data for the Middletown experiments, on the other hand, show markedly 

 different results. While in the series of 2-day experiments, the chlorine excre- 

 tion is perfectly comparable to that of the earlier experiments with one or two 

 exceptions, in the long fasts with S. A. B., especially experiments Nos. 73 

 and 75, the rapid excretion of any chloride accumulated in the body is not 

 observed. Indeed, even during the seven day fast, although to be sure the data 

 for the fifth day are missing, the total elimination of chlorine is (allowing 

 0.450 as the elimination for the fifth day) less than 5 grams. Extremely low 

 results, also, are observed in experiment No. 73. Singularly enough, in ex- 

 periment No. 77, the chlorine excretion is more nearly in accord with the 

 results of earlier observations. 



A possible explanation of the extremely small output of chlorine in experi- 

 ments Nos. 73, 75, and 77 may be found in the fact that the subject of the 

 experiments, S. A. B., used food largely of a vegetable nature, and practically 

 no table salt. It was the opinion of the assistants who weighed and prepared 



95 Physiologie des Stoffwechsels. Sonder-Abdruck aus; von Noorden, Handbuch 

 der Pathologie des Stoffwechsels (1906), p. 451. 



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