8o "Retrograde Circulation of Calcium" 



based upon the assumption that the soluble mineral matters (among 

 them salts of calcium) in watery extracts of feces, are excreted by 

 the intestinal mucous membrane. Ury considers intestinal calcium 

 an excretion that is complementary to the urinary elimination of 

 calcium. This idea, of complementary intestinal and urinary func- 

 tion in the excretion of calcium, seemed to have been confirmed, 

 in the pathological field, by Soetbeer (12), who described an 

 anomaly of calcareous catabolism, named calcariuria, in which the 

 quantities of urinary calcium increase, while those of fecal calcium 

 decrease. Soetbeer found, for example, that in 24 hours a woman 

 excreted, in the urine, 0.263 gm. of calcium (expressed as CaO) in 

 excess of the corresponding quantity by another normal person on 

 the same diet. On the contrary, she excreted 0.310 gm. less in the 

 feces. The excess of urinary calcium in this case originated from 

 absorbed alimentary calcium, which, in Opposition to what happens 

 normally, was not excreted by the intestinal mucous membrane, but 

 by the kidneys. Soetbeer attributes the pathogeny of calcariuria 

 to the existence of Colitis, which, he believes, impedes the excretion 

 of absorbed calcium through the diseased intestinal mucous mem- 

 brane. 



Nevertheless, I regard Ury's supposition as an undemonstrable 

 hypothesis. In reality the phenomenon his assumption is intended 

 to explain is of an entirely different character. I have termed " ret- 

 rograde circulation of calcium" in the human body the (a) putre- 

 factive production of soluble calcium (salts) in the feces, (b) the 

 reabsorption of such soluble calcium into the blood, and finally its 

 (c) passage into the urine, where it occurs in combination with 

 Volatile or inferior fatty acids primarily formed in the feces, 



My object, in this paper, is the presentation of an abstract of the 

 experimental data upon which my conclusions were established. 

 Those who may be interested in the details of the subject can find a 

 complete account of them in a book I have recently published, in 

 French, on the "Tropical pathological chemistry of the Atlantic 

 region" (13). 



Experimental. If the quantities of soluble and total calcium, 

 and also of volatile fatty acids, in feces, are determined by means of 



