352 



EDEMA 



chanical ori^n {urticaria factitia), show evidence of a toxic action, 

 in that there occurs a severe nuclear fragmentation ( Gilchrist). ^^'^ 



Hereditary Edema. — In a number of families there has been observed 

 a peculiar inherited tendency to the occurrence of acute attacks of 

 local edema, which not infrequently have proved fatal when involving 

 the glottis.^^'= There can be little question that these instances of 

 hereditary edema depend upon a nervous affection of some kind, it 

 being practically an angioneurotic edema ; but how the edema is pro- 

 duced, and wliat the nature of the nei*vous alteration may be, are as 

 mysterious as are most other so-called "nervous inheritances." There 

 also are cases of congenital edema, which may occur repeatedly in 

 the fetuses of the same mother and cause habitual miscarriage ; ^^ and 

 still another class of cases in which the children are born apparently 

 healthy, but develop fatal dropsy when a few weeks old,*** Nothing 

 is known as to the cause of this condition. Patein " has analyzed the 

 fluid in a case of congenital ascites and found it somewhat more like 

 an exudate than a transudate. 



COMPOSITION OF EDEMATOUS FLUIDS ^- 



As is well known, the composition of edematous fluids varies greatly 

 according to the cause of the edema and the place where it occurs. 

 In general, non-inflammatory edemas (transudates) contain much less 

 protein than do the inflammatory exudates, as is shown by the follow- 

 ing table of analyses by Halliburton ^^ and by Bernheim 's ** deter- 

 minations of proteins in ascitic fluids. 



Table I 



ssbJolins Hopkins Hosp. Bull., 1008 (19), 49. 



3SC Literatu-re, see Fairbanks, Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., 1904 (127). Si 

 and French, Quart. Jour. Med., 1908 (1), 312. 



:ioW. Fischer, Berl. klin. Woch., 1912 (49), 2403. 



40 Kd<ic\vorth, Lancet. 1911 (181), 21(>. 



41 .Tour. Pharm. et Chim., 1910 (102), 209. 



••- Many data are jriven l)v Cerliartz, llandhuch der Hiocheinie, 190S, 11 



43 Adarni, Allbutfs System, 1896 (1), 97. 



44 Quoted by Hammarsten, "Physiological Chemistry." 



Hope 



2), 137, 



