ANALYSIS OF NORMAL FILIPINO URINE 



By ISABEIiO CONCEPCION 



(From the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine and Surgery, 

 University of the Philippines) 



The main object of the present investigation is to study the 

 several constituents of Filipino urine in order to get reliable 

 standards of the diiferent excretory products for comparison 

 with American and European standards, and with those of other 

 people living in the tropics. This is of extreme clinical impor- 

 tance, for it is evident that the standards of excretion of these 

 constituents for Europeans and Americans, as given in phy- 

 siological textbooks, cannot be accepted for Filipinos; there- 

 fore, any deduction of a clinical or practical nature based upon 

 them must be misleading. The results given in this paper have 

 been obtained from a series of analyses of the urine in different 

 classes of the Filipino population of Manila. 



In carrying on this investigation a uniform procedure was 

 used throughout. The urine passed in each twenty-four hours 

 was collected for from three to seven consecutive days in clean 

 2-liter bottles, containing 20 drops of saturated alcoholic thymol 

 solution, and examined daily. The subjects of the experiments 

 were all adults; namely, students in the physiology department 

 of the university, laboratory helpers, Bilibid prisoners, and 

 hospital servants, all living on a diet commensurate with their 

 respective stations in life. All were allowed to choose their diet, 

 except the Bilibid prisoners, who have a special ration. There- 

 fore, these observations were made under ordinary conditions of 

 everyday life. The diet was not controlled, for the reason that 

 other investigators have sho\\Ti that continued monotony of diet 

 affects the appetite. 



Qvxintity of urine. — As shown in Table I there is wide varia- 

 tion in the quantity of urine passed. In the average of each 

 individual the lower and upper limits were 317 and 2,555 cubic 

 centimeters, respectively, and the daily output showed even 

 wider variation, the lowest amount passed in any one day being 

 265 and the largest 3,120 cubic centimeters. This variability 

 for different individuals depends upon the kind of diet, the 

 amount of water drunk, the condition of the individual, and the 

 external temperature. 



347 



