THE KIDNEYS. 673 



kidneys also contain, according to LONNBERG, a mucin-like substance. 

 This substance yields no reducing body on boiling with acids, and belongs 

 chiefly to the papillae, and is, this author says, a nucleoalbumin 

 (nucleoproteid?) . The cortical substance is richer in another nucleoal- 

 bumin (nucleoproteid) unlike mucin. It has not been decided what 

 relation this last substance bears to HALLIBURTON' s nucleoprotein. 

 Chondroitin sulphuric acid also occurs as traces. MANDEL and LEVENB 

 have also obtained glucothionic acid from the kidneys, and the question 

 as to the relation of this to the renosulphuric acid described by MANDEL 

 and NEUBERG l is still undecided. This renosulphuric acid to all appear- 

 ances is not a unit substance but a sulphuric acid ester, and a com- 

 ponent related to glucuronic acid which contained 2.63 p. c. S., 4.53 

 p. c., N., and 1.34 p. c. P. 



Fat occurs only in very small amounts and this fat, like the organ 

 fat in general, is relatively rich in unsaturated fatty acids. The phos- 

 phatides seem to be of different kinds. FRANKEL and NOGUEIRA 2 found 

 a cephalin-like substance, a triaminodiphosphatide and a diamino- 

 monophosphatide. DUNHAM and JACOBSON S found in beef-kidneys a 

 substance which they called carnaubon which is soluble in alcohol but 

 insoluble in ether, and which is a triaminomonophosphatide with the 

 formula Cy^isoNaPOis. Carnaubon does not contain any glycerin 

 but an amino-sugar, two choline groups and a molecule of each of the 

 following acids: stearic, palmitic and carnaubic (C24H4sO2) acids. Among 

 the extractive bodies of the kidneys one finds purine bases, betaine* urea, 

 uric acid (traces), glycogen, leucine, inosite, taurine, and cystine (in ox- 

 kidneys). The quantitative analyses of the kidneys thus far made 

 possess little interest. In the kidney of a healthy suicide MAGNUS- 

 LEVY 5 found in 1000 parts of the fresh substance 756 p. m. water, 244 

 p. m. solids, 52.7 p. m. fat, 2.08 p. m. CL, 0.192 p. m. Ca., 0.207 p. m. 

 Mg and 0.158 p. m. Fe. * 



The fluid collected under pathological conditions, as in hydronephrosis, is 

 thin with a variable but generally low specific gravity. Usually it is straw-yellow 

 or paler in color, and sometimes colorless. Most frequently it is clear, or only 

 faintly cloudy from white blood-corpuscles and epithelium-cells; in a few cases 

 it is so rich in form-elements that it appears like pus. Protein generally occurs 

 in small amounts; occasionally it is entirely absent, but in a few rare cases the 



1 Halliburton, Journ. of Physiol., 13, Suppl., and 18; Liebermann, Pfliiger's Arch., 

 50 and 54; Lonnberg, see Maly's Jahresber., 20; Mandel and Levene, Zeithschr. f. 

 physiol. Chem., 47; Mandel and Neuberg, Bioch. Zeitschr., 13; Morner, Skand. 

 Arch. f. Physiol., 6. 



2 Bioch. Zeitschr., 16. 



3 Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 64. 

 4 Bebeschin, Zeitschr., f. physiol. Chem., 72. 

 3 Bioch. Zeitschr., 24. 



