OXALURIA. 451) 



Beneke, a German patliologist, has studied the question of 

 the origin of oxalic acid in the human frame, and has arrived 

 at the following conclusions : — 



" 1. Oxaluria, a condition which accompanies the lighter or 

 severer forms of illness, has its proximate cause in an impeded 

 metamorphosis — that is, an insufficient activity of that stage of 

 oxidization which changes oxalic acid into carbonic acid. 



" 2. Oxalic acid has, if not its sole, its chief source in the 

 nitrogenous constituents of the blood and food : everything, 

 therefore, which retards the metamorphosis of these constituents 

 occasions oxaluria. 



" 3. Such a retardation of the metamorphosis of the azotized 

 constituents of the blood may be determined by the following 

 causes : — 



" (a.) Abuse of azotized articles of food (direct retardation). 



" (b.) Abuse of saccharine and starchy articles of food (indirect 

 retardation). 



" (c.) Insutiiciency of tlie red corpuscles, and (eventually) 

 diminished oxidation. 



" (d.) Insufficient enjoyment of pure, fresh, ventilated air. 



" (e.) Organic lesion, which may in any way impede respira- 

 tion and the circulation of the blood. 



" (/.) Conditions of tlie nervous system which bear a charac- 

 ter of depression, whether these arise primarily from 

 mental derangement or from pathological states of the 

 blood. 



" 4. Excess of alkaline bases in the blood, which, as numerous 

 observations tend to show, plays an important part among the 

 etiological conditions of oxaluria ; and it is not improbable that 

 an increased production of lactic and butyric acids in the diges- 

 tive canal, consequent thereupon, impedes the development of 

 the red corpuscles, and thereby generates that chlorotic state 

 which so often occasions and accompanies oxaluria. 



" 5. Catarrhal conditions of the intestinal mucous membrane, 

 in case they are accompanied by oxaluria, have at most only a 

 common source. They may determine oxaluria by causing 

 deranged digestion, but cannot be considered as its proximate 

 cause." 



Oxalic acid differs from carbonic acid in possessing an atom 

 less of oxygen and one less of carbon, and we cannot be sur- 



