DETECTION OF GLYCURONIC ACID 323 



glycuronic acid excretion in the urine is really an 

 exception. 57 



Apparently, however, urinary glycuronic acid presents 

 a practical clinical interest in another direction. Studies by 

 K. v. Stejskal and Griinwald 58 have indicated that, while the 

 normal body tends to carry out the synthesis of conjugate 

 glycuronic acid after administration of camphor with suchi 

 precision that almost the whole quantity of camphor- 

 glycuronic acid, as calculated theoretically, appears in the 

 urine in the course of twenty-four hours, in a patient suf- 

 fering from hepatic cirrhosis or severe catarrhal jaundice, 

 the process is distinctly inhibited. The expectation of pos- 

 sible employment of the synthetic production of this sub- 

 stance as the basis for a method of functional hepatic 

 diagnosis is apparently, therefore, not entirely without rea- 

 son, although there is not the least reason for referring the 

 processes of glycuronic acid formation exclusively to the 

 liver. It has been shown, however, in studies carried on in 

 Hofmeister's laboratory, 59 that hepatic destruction from 

 acid infusion may be without any influence upon the syn- 

 thesis of glycuronic acid after administration of chloral; 

 and J. Pohl 60 has found that severe hepatic changes due to 

 intoxication with ethylendiamine inhibit, it is true, the 

 formation of urochloralic acid, but do not inhibit that of 

 phenol-glycuronic acid. 



Detection and Estimation of Glycuronic Acid. In conclu- 

 sion a few words may be devoted to discussion of the modes 

 of detection and estimation of glycuronic acid. 



57 B. von Fenyvessy ( Pharmakol. Instit., Budapesth), Arch, internat. des 

 Pharmacodyn, 12, 407, 1903; C. Tollens and F. Stern, Zeitschr. f. physiol. 

 Chem., 64, 39, 1910; C. Tollens, ibid., 67, 138, 1910; E. Mayerhofer (Franz 

 Josef's Hospital, Vienna), Zeitschr. f. Kinderheilk., 1, 226, 1910; Zeitschr. f. 

 physiol. Chem., 70, 391, 1910. 



68 K. v. Stejskal and H. Fr. Grunwald (Second Med. Clinic, Vienna) , Wiener 

 klin. Wochenschr., 1909, No. 30. 



59 F. Pick (Hofmeister's Lab., Prague), 'Arch. f. exper. Pathol., 33, 315, 

 1894. 



60 J. Pohl (Prague), Arch. f. exper. Pathol., 41, 971, 1895. 



