G. Dclgado Palacios 79 



In adults under ordinary conditions, the urinary calcium amounts 

 to about 10 percent of the ingested total. Von Noorden (3) found 

 that in five persons there were variations between 3.9 and 28.3 per- 

 cent of that total. Blauberg (4) determined that in infants during 

 the nursing period, on mother's milk, the relation between the 

 amounts of urinary and fecal calcium was 76 : 24, that is to say, the 

 relation for adults is reversed for infants. When infants were fed 

 upon cow milk, however, this ratio was similar to that for adults, 

 and varied from 45 : 55 to 22 : 78. In nursing infants the fecal re- 

 action is normally acid; in adults and in infants fed upon cow milk, 

 the fecal reaction is usually neutral or alkaline. When, in adults 

 under certain pathological conditions, the fecal reaction becomes 

 strongly acid, the calcium ratio is " inverted," as for nursing infants. 



The relation between (a) the quantity of calcium that is excreted 

 by the intestinal mucous membrane, after having traversed the in- 

 termediary nutritive cycle mentioned above, and (b) the residuary 

 calcium, of ingested food, that passes along the digestive tract with- 

 out being absorbed, cannot be estimated precisely, because of inade- 

 quacy of the methods for their determination. The method em- 

 ployed by Müller (5), Tigerstedt (6), Renvall (7) and Salomon 

 and Wallace (8), was based upon analytic data pertaining to the 

 feces of (a) fasting subjects (Cetti and Breithaupt) or of (b) sub- 

 jects receiving a diet poor in nitrogen, phosphorus and salins, that 

 is to say, a diet from which residuary food calcium was eliminated 

 (practical fasting, in this connection). In such subjects fecal cal- 

 cium is calcium excreted into the alimentary tract. Salomon and 

 Wallace have found that, in two adults subjected to a diet consisting 

 exclusively of sugar, 0.21 1 gm. and 0.189 gm. of calcium (expressed 

 as CaO), were excreted respectively during 24 hours. On such a 

 diet, fecal calcium arises almost entirely from the mucous membrane 

 in the lower portions of the small intestine, according to Voit (9), 

 whose experimental researches on the feces produced by an isolated 

 intestinal loop permit of no doubt in this matter. The pancreatic 

 and biliary secretions, as well as those produced by the large mtes- 

 tine, contain only very small quantities of calcium. 



The method employed by Salkowski (10), later by Ury (11), is 



