714 THE CELLS OF BOWMAN'S CAPSULE 



proved the selective secretory activity of these cells in the follow- 

 ing way. He injected laky blood or egg albumin into frogs whose 

 secretion of urine had been stopped by ligature of the renal arteries, 

 and into dogs after section of the spinal cord. He found in the 

 glomeruli menisci of haemoglobin or proteid, which, he argued, 

 must have been secreted by the glomerular epithelium, because no 

 urine had been formed, and therefore no nitration could have taken 

 place. But it has been shown by Beddard that Adami's ligature 

 of the renal arteries did not put all the glomeruli out of circulation, 

 as he imagined, and although no flow of urine was observed, it 

 is impossible to say that no glomerular filtrate whatever had been 

 formed. In the same way with the experiments in dogs, a flow 

 of urine has been observed with arterial pressures far lower than 

 those recorded in Adami's experiments, and although no urine 

 left the kidney, some filtration through the glomeruli may still 

 have taken place. 



There can be little doubt that alterations in the glomerular 

 epithelium apart from change in the arterial blood pressure can 

 cause anuria. We have already seen that injections of calcium, 

 strontium, or gold chloride will bring this about. Injections of a 

 certain albumose may lead to the same suppression of urine. 

 Thompson has shown that the various constituents of Witte's 

 peptone injected intravenously cause a great fall of arterial 

 pressure due to vaso-dilatation in many areas ; but that the 

 renal vessels are not caused to dilate, and hence the kidney 

 volume follows passively the arterial blood pressure. He further 

 found that proteose dissolved in normal salt solution caused 

 diuresis, but subsequently showed that the effect could be ex- 

 plained entirely by the injection of the solvent without the 

 proteose. Chittenden, Mendel, and Henderson found that an 

 injection of hetero-albumose in normal salt solution might stop 

 the secretion of urine completely for half-an-hour or more, 

 although the fall in arterial blood pressure was slight and 

 transient. It is difficult to see how such anuria can have been 

 brought about except by some effect on the glomerulus. And, 

 as the filtering force appears to have been unreduced, we are 

 obliged to believe that the anuria is due to some change in 

 Bowman's membrane. The change in the cells might be a purely 

 physical one ; but it seems unlikely, for Sollmann has shown 

 that, when this membrane has undergone complete chemical or 

 post-mortem coagulation, the ordinary capillary pressure is able to 



