380 



Urine in Chronic Disease of the Pancreas. 



would also furnish a pentose-yielding substance which might pass into the 

 urine, but this does not appear to be the case. The reasons why the pancreas 

 is probably more liable to yield a pentose complex that can be split up and 

 so recognised in the urine are two : first, according to Grund,* the percentage 

 of pentose in the dry weight of the pancreas is nearly five times as great as 

 in any other organ of the body (pancreas 2 - 48 per cent., liver 0*56 per cent., 

 thymus 0"56 per cent., kidney - 49 per cent., muscle Oil per cent.); second, 

 the pentose contained in the nucleo-protein of the pancreas and thymus 

 is said to be more loosely combined and more readily set free than the 

 corresponding sugar in other tissues.f With regard to the first point, 

 however, the relative bulks of the organs have to be taken into account, and 

 it is conceivable that if the whole of an organ, such as the liver, were 

 simultaneously involved in some degenerative change, it might yield as 

 much or more pentose-containing substance as the pancreas under similar 

 conditions. 



Only a small part of the field of research opened up by these investigations 

 has as yet been touched upon. It is hoped that by further experiment it 

 may be possible to isolate the mother- substance giving rise to the pentose 

 obtained from the urine in cases of pancreatitis, and also that a fresh series 

 of animal experiments may furnish information as to the chemical changes 

 in the body associated with diseases of the pancreas that precede and lead 

 up to the disturbances of internal metabolism that give rise to diabetes. 



* Hoppe-Seyler's ' Zeit. f. hysiol. Ohem.,' vol. 35, p. 111. 



t Blumenthal, "Dis. of Metabolism," v. Noorden's 'Clin. Med.,' 1906, p. 262. 



