130 CREATIN AND CREATININ 



was hoped that the study of creatin metabolism would lead 

 to a method of determining the functional condition of the 

 liver, from the rather undefined idea that the liver was the 

 site of enzymic anhydration of the creatin. In phosphorus 

 poisoning, 31 and in degenerative processes involving the 

 hepatic parenchyma, especially in hepatic carcinoma, 32 it is 

 said that urinary creatin is increased, with reduction of 

 creatinin. However, exclusion of the liver from the portal 

 circulation does not materially affect creatin metabolism. 33 

 One of the au thor's pupils, H. Ishihara, 34 was likewise un- 

 able to detect any influence of the kind in the course of sub- 

 chronic phosphorus poisoning in dogs ; and the author feels 

 there is little to be expected from this point of view as far as 

 a clinical test of the hepatic function is concerned. 



Relation of Creatin Metabolism to Processes in the 

 Female Sexual Organs. The recognition of a relation be- 

 tween creatin metabolism and the cyclical processes of the 

 female genital organs is of decided interest. Creatin ap- 

 pears in the urine of women in increased amount after 

 menstruation, but may be entirely absent in the intermen- 

 strual period. It may occur in the latter part of pregnancy 

 and, too, in the period of involution of the uterus after de- 

 livery. 35 It would be decidedly gratuitous to attempt to 

 explain these phenomena on the basis of a lowering of the 

 anhydrizing ability of the liver; there is at least as much 

 reason to suppose that they are due to changes in the 

 myometrium itself; for that matter, however, the one 



81 G. Lefxnann, Zeitschr. f . physiol. Chem., 57, 468, 1908. 



32 C. J. C. Van Hoogenhuyze and H. Verploegh, Zeitschr. f . physiol. Chem., 

 58, 161, 1908. 



88 E. S. London and N. Bolgarski, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 62, 465, 1909 ; 

 C. Towles, and C. Voegtlin (Johns Hopkins Univ.), Jour, of Biol. Chem., 10, 

 479, 1912. 



84 H. Ishihara (Instit. of Physiol., Univ. Vienna), Biochem. Zeitschr., 41 

 315, 1912. 



85 R. A. Krause (Edinburgh), Quarterly Jour, of Physiol., 4, 293, 1911; 

 R. A. Krause and W. Cramer, Jour, of Physiol., 42, Proc. of Phys. Soc., XXXIV, 

 1911; J. R. Murlin (New York), Amer. Jour, of Physiol., 28, 422, 1911. 



