PENTOSURIA 269 



common tests, and the utilization of several liters of urine is necessary to find 

 the substance at all. We have no knowledge as to which pentose appears in 

 the urme m diabetes (whether pentose of the food, or inactive arabinose, or 

 pancreas pentose, i. e., 1-xylose), nor do we know whether it is particularly in 

 the severe cases of diabetes that pentose is excreted. 



To quite a different group belong those cases of pentosuria in which, besides 

 pentose, glycose appears transitorily in the urine. In this instance the gly- 

 cosuria may have an accidental cause (morphin), as in the case of Jastrowitz 

 and Salkowski which led to the discovery of pentosuria. We may, however, 

 encounter the combination of true pentosuria with mild diabetes. I have 

 seen such a case. The quantity of grape sugar amounted to 0.6 to 1 per 

 cent., the amount of pentose was 0.3 to 0.5 per cent. As the urine was 

 sent to me for investigation only a few times, I can say nothing further 

 about the course of the case. Only this much could be determined, that 

 the pentose found in the urine was inactive, therefore probably an inactive 

 arabinose. 



The second group of chronic cases of pentosuria includes the pure cases, 

 in which no other sugar than pentose is found. Up to this time the following 

 cases are reported in literature : first, the case of Jastrowitz and E. Salkowski 

 in which the glycosuria disappeared after morphin was stopped, while the 

 pentosuria proved chronic ; secondly, the two cases described by Salkowski and 

 myself. The first of these occurred in a merchant, thirty-six years of age, 

 and always healthy, who was married and had four living children. The 

 amount of pentose he excreted varied between 0.7 and 1 per cent., with an 

 average amount of urine of a liter to a liter and a half per day. This case 

 occurred in 1895 in the practice of Dr. L. Peilchenfeld who still has the 

 patient under observation. Up to this time the pentosuria has never been 

 associated with any serious symptoms. The patient repeatedly suffered from 

 hydrocele, and the fluid obtained by puncture was examined by me and found 

 to contain grape sugar but no pentose. The urine has also been utilized by 

 C. Neuberg for the preparation of r-arabinose. The patient was decidedly 

 thin. 



The third case occurred in a banker, aged sixty-five. This patient (ac- 

 cording to the report of Dr. Blumenthal, who treated him for over twenty years 

 before the pentosuria was discovered) is said to have repeatedly had reducing 

 substances in his urine, but grape sugar was never found until 1895, when the 

 pentosuria was discovered. This case is especially interesting as, in the 

 family of the patient, numerous chronic diseases occur, particularly diabetes 

 and nervous diseases. Up to two years before death (which occurred in 1900) 

 the urine in this case constantly showed about one per cent, of pentose. For 

 some time before death he was treated by another physician; his death was 

 due to arteriosclerosis. The autopsy showed calcification of the coronary 

 arteries; the pathologist told me that nothing of special interest was found 

 in the pancreas, but unfortunately he had not been informed of the existence 

 of pentosuria. 



The fourth and fifth cases were published by Dr. Bial. The fourth was 

 that of a merchant from Warsaw, aged thirty-seven, who suffered from mild 



