I. INTRODUCTION. 



This study is a continuation of the preliminary work by 

 Ottenberg and Gies who found in this laboratory that crude 

 elastose, after its subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection, 

 can readily be detected in the urine by the heat precipitation 

 test. Since the Bence Jones protein has various properties in 

 common with elastoses, Ottenberg and Gies suggested that 

 osseoalbumoid (bone elastin?) might be the forerunner of the 

 Bence Jones protein, which appears in the urine of people 

 with multiple myeloma of the bones. 



It was thought that perhaps the osseoalbumoid of the bone 

 might be so acted upon by the enzymes present in the cells 

 of the myelomatous growth, as to give rise to a body having 

 the properties of the Bence Jones protein. 



II. HISTORICAL. 



It was the writer's intention before beginning his study of 

 the literature of the Bence Jones protein and multiple myel- 

 oma, to make a list of all the known cases of myeloma and 

 Bence Jones albuminuria, with the characteristics of each, 

 but this was found to have been done by Anders and Bos- 

 ton, who record cases up to 1903 and give a report of three 

 new cases; by Weber, who records 28 cases up to 1904 and 

 gives the history of ten more cases; by Moffat, who records 39 

 cases up to 1905; and by Permin, who records 40 cases up 

 to 1907. Decastello in a recent paper gives a description of 

 two more cases and an analysis of the previously recorded 

 cases. 



In 1847 Bence Jones presented before the Royal Society of 

 London, a paper " On a New Substance Occurring in the Urine 

 of a Patient with ' Mollities Ossium,' " in which he described, 

 for the first time, the substance since known as the Bence 

 Jones protein. In the Philosophical Transactions of the 

 Royal Society (1848, i, p. 55) he described several properties 

 of this body, and gave his results of a study of it in his case of 

 Mollities Ossium. The Bence Jones protein was rediscovered 



