444 ACETONE BODIES 



ing as the number of carbon atoms increases. A. J. Ringer 

 has very recently occasioned a great deal of surprise 

 by reporting that in control experiments, conducted under 

 direction of Graham Lusk, he was unable to confirm these 

 findings, and by attributing the above results to fault in the 

 experimental technic of his predecessors. 31 In the author 's 

 opinion however, the oft-repeated results of Baer and Blum, 

 assembled with so much care, are not to be put aside in such 

 summary manner; it would seem rather to be an objective 

 requirement to follow up the particular factors which are 

 the ultimate cause of this contradiction. 



Ammonia Elimination and Acidosis. As already stated 

 the proportion of ammonia in the urine affords an approxi- 

 mate evaluation of the elimination of oxybutyric acid. How- 

 ever, the ammonia, even if a large quantity is excreted, does 

 not, according to C. von Noorden, ordinarily represent more 

 than twenty to twenty-five per cent, of the total urinary 

 nitrogen. In a case of diabetic coma we may, it is true, meet 

 with not less than forty-five per cent, of the total nitrogen 

 as ammonia. 32 Yet it would be a decided misuse of words to 

 identify, as is often done, two different phenomena like in- 

 creased elimination of acetone bodies and of ammonia, which, 

 of course, often run along parallel, under the collective term 

 "acidosis." There are conceivable cases in which an in- 

 creased ammonia excretion is due to altogether different 

 causes. Disturbances of the synthesis of urea in the liver 

 may be such a cause, as was pointed out above. According 

 to W. Schlesinger 33 an abnormally increased fat cleavage in 

 the intestine and an abnormally high loss of calcium in the 

 faeces, from the formation of relatively insoluble lime soaps, 

 may give rise to alkali impoverishment and to a compensa- 

 tory increase of excretion of ammonia. Then, too, a notable 



31 A. J. Ringer (Univ. of Pennsylvania), Jour, of Biol. Chem., 12, 223, 1912. 



32 C. von Noorden, Handb.' d. Pathol. d. Stoffw., 2d ed., 2, 82, 1907; cf. also 

 W. Camerer, Zeitschr. f. Biol., 44, 22, 1903. 



83 W. Schlesinger (Vienna), Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 54, 14, 1904. 



