INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 225 



day of diamines (principally tetramethylendiamin) in 

 the faeces of a cystinuria patient. This quantity is 

 equal to the amounts found in the urine from the same 

 case. In the urine, however, the cadaverin constituted 

 about sixty per cent, of the diamines ; in the faeces only 

 from ten to fifteen per cent, of the bases consisted of 

 cadaverin. Neither Brieger nor Baumann and Udranzky 

 was able to find diamines in normal fasces. Moreover, 

 Baumann and Udranzky were not able to find these 

 bases in examples of disease other than cystinuria. 

 Roos l in a case of combined malaria and dysentery with 

 fever and enlargement of the spleen found in the faeces 

 a small quantity of pentamethylendiamin. There was 

 very little indican in the urine of this patient. He was 

 unable to find diamines in cases of malaria alone. In a 

 case of fever following gonorrhoea he was able to obtain 

 small quantities of dibenzoylcadaverin. 



Although the study of the conditions under which 

 putrescin and cadaverin are formed in the intestinal 

 tract is of much biological interest, there is at the present 

 time little evidence that these diamines are ever formed 

 in sufficient quantities in the human intestine to con- 

 stitute in themselves factors in the production of states 

 of intoxication. The association with cystinuria is a 

 striking fact, and the further investigation of this disease 

 will doubtless give us an explanation of the relationship 

 between the production of diamines and the formation 

 of cystin, if indeed there be any necessary relation. 



1 "Ueber das Vorkommen von Diaminen bei Krankheiten," 

 Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem. t xvi, p. 192, 1892. 



q 



