[Reprinted from the Journal of Physiology. 

 Vol. XXXIII. 1905.] 



THE FACTORS OF THE URETER PRESSURE. BY 

 V. E. HENDERSON, M.A., M.B. (Tor.), Demonstrator of 

 Physiology in the University of Toronto. (Six Figures in Text.) 



(From the Physiological Laboratory at University College, London.) 



SEVERAL observers in the course of their studies on the mechanism of 

 the secretion of the urine have connected the ureter with a manometer 

 and have thus caused the kidney to secrete against a pressure created by 

 its own activity. Cushny and others by the production of such a pressure 

 have slowed the urinary production in the one kidney as compared 

 with the other and have studied the changes in chemical constitution of 

 the urine that the altered conditions produced. Gottlieb and Magnus 

 have devoted one of the papers in their series on the action of the kidney 

 to a study of this condition. Some experiments instituted with a some- 

 what different end in view seemed to point to the need of a more critical 

 study of this phenomenon if it is to be pressed into service to throw 

 light upon the function of the kidney. The results of this study are 

 contained in this paper. 



The methods employed were familiar ones. One ureter was con- 

 nected by a cannula to a mercury manometer whose style wrote upon 

 smoked paper. A side-tube closed by a clip allowed the pressure to be 

 removed at any time, and the secretory activity of the kidney to be 

 noted. Only when a high pressure was maintained for a prolonged time 

 (such did not occur in the course of the experiments described), and 

 simultaneously a marked hydroemic plethora was produced, did a 

 markedly cedematous condition of the kidney, with the formation of 

 blebs under the capsule, occur. Such a condition seemed to be much 

 more readily produced in rabbits than in dogs. In some cases the 

 cannula was inserted high up into the ureter (practially into the kidney 

 pelvis), but the results were essentially the same as when it was inserted 

 lower down. A blood-pressure tracing was taken throughout from 

 either the carotid or the femoral artery. In several experiments the 

 kidney in connection with the manometer was placed in a plethysmo- 



PH. XXXIII. 12 



