92 



Scientific Proceedings (73). 



53 (i"7) 



Nitrogen retention in nephritis in children. 



By Irving S. Cutter and Max Morse. 



[From the Biochemical Laboratory, University of Nebraska, College 

 of Medicine, Omaha.] 



The writers have studied the urinary excretion of nitrogenous 

 products in nephritic children and conclude that retention, such 

 as is described for all of these components in adults by Mosenthal, 

 Folin, Foster and others for cases of nephritis does not obtain in 

 children. It is to be expected that as far as some of the com- 

 ponents are concerned, such as creatin, the adult and child con- 

 dition would be different for the metabolism of creatin in children 

 differs from that of the adult. We have found that retention 

 of creatin and creatinin is a matter of twenty-four hours or less 

 and that no retention occurs beyond that time in the cases ex- 

 amined. The excretion of these constituents was followed by 

 studying 24-hour specimens, supplemented by shorter time 

 specimens and temperature, food, etc., were checked in all cases. 

 In none of the cases studied were the creatin results vitiated by 

 the acetone nor by the aceto-acetic acid factor, attention to which 

 was duly paid. The figures obtained from the nephritic children 

 were lower than those obtained from a study of a number of 

 normal children from the Child Saving Institute, but this is not 

 interpreted as meaning retention, for immobility in children 

 involves lower nitrogen output in general. The marked divergence 

 in data of creatinin excretion in the nephritic children from day 

 to day is typically different from the figures obtained by others in 

 the adult, for the typical condition in the adult is constancy in 

 amount of excretion, whereas in the children the variation from 

 day to day was marked. The writers are not aware of a similar 

 study having been made previous to the present one. 



