CAMMIDGE REACTION 293 



distillation of the isolated pentosazone with hydrochloric 

 acid and subjecting the distillate, containing furfurol, to the 

 orcin test ; by which means it is said confusion of pentose 

 with a hexose or a combined glycuronic acid may be pre- 

 vented. 62 



Cammidge Reaction. In concluding the consideration 

 of pentosuria the reaction of Cammidge, which in recent 

 years has attracted a great deal of attention, may be briefly 

 spoken of. 



Cammidge 63 some years ago announced that he believed 

 he had found a characteristic urine reaction for chronic dis- 

 eases of the pancreas. The substance concerned in this 

 reaction could be obtained by boiling the urine with hydro- 

 chloric acid, neutralizing with lead carbonate, and precipitat- 

 ing with alkaline lead. From the precipitate a solution 

 can be obtained by the decomposing action of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, yielding the usual carbohydrate reactions and an 

 osazone (apparently a pentosazone). Cammidge, who dis- 

 covered this reaction in dogs in which a pancreatitis had been 

 artificially produced, offered for it what was probably a 

 correct interpretation, relating it with an excretion of sugars 

 of five carbon atoms which were derived from the breaking 

 down of nucleoproteins of the pancreas, which is rich in pen- 

 tose. Many later investigators have much simplified the 

 rather detailed process of Cammidge, at least to the end of 

 satisfactorily demonstrating the presence of an osazone in 

 an apparently sugar-free urine after hydrolysis with hydro- 

 chloric acid. 



Cammidge 's contribution started up a perfect flood of 

 publications, a detailed review of which is perhaps unneces- 

 sary here. Whoever may desire to do so may easily find 

 articles by the dozen in the last ten years of the journals 

 devoting themselves to the publication of abstracts. The 



62 A. Jolles, Biochem. Zeitschr., 2, 243, 1906; Miinchener med. Wochenschr., 

 57, 353, 1910. 



68 P. T. Cammidge, Proc. Roy. Soc., London, Series B, 81, 372, 1909. 



