620 FEVER 



quent occurrence of albumoses in the urine of febrile indi- 

 viduals observed by Krehl and Matthes may be classed here ; 

 as, too, the much discussed shifting of the relation of the 

 carbon to the nitrogen in the urine. 29 It would be scarcely 

 wrong to assume that in the latter group the oxyproteic 

 acids are certainly included, that is, high molecular products 

 of protein cleavage which, however, no longer yield typical 

 proteid reactions. Uncertainty on this point is due especi- 

 ally to the fact that we unfortunately, up to the present 

 time, have no exact method of determining the oxyproteic 

 acids in the urine. In this connection the diazoreaction in 

 febrile urine comes suggestively in a new light. (This is 

 met with regularity in typhoid fever and typhus exanthe- 

 maticus, in advanced phthisis, measles, as well as in puer- 

 peral fever and septic processes of various kinds, in severe 

 cases of pneumonia, scarlet fever and erysipelas.) 30 There 

 is at present every reason for assuming (vide supra, p. 139) 

 that the diazoreaction is connected with one of the oxy- 

 proteic acids, and probably with one which owes its chromo- 

 genic character to a contained cyclical group coming from 

 the protein molecule (apparently histidin), and which may 

 be regarded as the mother substance of the normal yellow 

 urinary coloring matter, urochrome. 



Acidosis and Fat Destruction. Sometimes in examining 

 the urine of febrile cases the amount of ammonia is found 

 somewhat increased in proportion to urea. This is a mani- 

 festation of an acidosis of moderate degree, to which atten- 

 tion was first directed by v. Jaksch and to which since then 

 considerable study has been devoted. 31 It by no means 

 attains the grade met in diabetes. And in the blood, as 

 P. Frankel determined in the laboratory of Friedrich Kraus 

 by the aid of the method of electric concentration chains, it 

 is not possible to recognize any change of the hydrogen ion 



29 A. Lowy, Scholz, May, Roily, Magnus- Alsleben, and others. 



30 Cf . F. Kraus, 1. c., pp. 660-662. 



31 Cf. Literature: F. Kraus, 1. c., pp. 656-660, 1906; P. F. Richter, 1. c., 

 pp. 123-125, 133-136, 1910. 



