INTERRELATION OF ACETONE BODIES 445 



increase of the lower fatty acids in the intestine doubtless 

 calls out a lowering of the alkalinity of the body, as the acids 

 appear in the faeces in a practically entirely neutralized 

 condition. 34 



Interrelation of the Acetone Bodies. This discussion of 

 the acetone body problem would be incomplete were there 

 no attempt made to explain the mutual relations of these 

 substances. 



Formerly this relationship was supposed to consist of a 

 transition of the /?-oxybutyric acid in the economy into 

 diacetic acid, which then under normal conditions was sup- 

 posed to undergo combustion (without forming acetone by 

 cleavage of carbonic acid). It was presumed, moreover, 

 that in severe diabetes this transformation was so disturbed 

 that the oxybutyric acid and diacetic acid were passed off 

 as excretions. 



This conception must be modified, to be in harmony with 

 modern investigations. Otto Neubauer 35 proposes the fol- 

 lowing schema : 



C0 2 + H 2 



DIACETIC ACID ACETONE. 



According to this the oxybutyric acid, but not the aceto- 

 acetic acid, would be a normal intermediate metabolic prod- 



54 Cf. also A. Schittenhelm and A. Katzenstein ( G-ottingen ) , Zeitschr. f. 

 exper. Pathol., 2, 542, 1906; L. F. Meyer and L. Langstein (Berlin), Jahrb. f. 

 Kinderheilk., 63, 30, 1906. 



85 O. Neubauer, 27th Internat. Kongr., Wiesbaden, 1910, 566. 



