1889 - 90 .] Dr H. H. Ashdown on Substances in Urine. 63 
by the respective quantities of the normal urinary constituents 
eliminated. 
I have shown elsewhere that the renal secretion, after section of 
the renal nerves, is a true paralytic secretion, and I find that the 
greatest abundance, never very large though distinctly marked, of 
this substance occurs at the maximal display of energy which is 
reached just prior to the outset of the stage of exhaustion. 
After a very careful and exhaustive chemical analysis of these 
different specimens, I have convinced myself that this substance 
which is present is not glucose, and that this condition is not there- 
fore a form of glycosuria properly so-called, and I have little 
hesitation in affirming that it is due to the presence of glycuronic 
acid. 
It is, however, no easy task to seek out the cause or significance of 
these results. The animals were fed with a liberal meat diet on the 
evening prior to the observation, and as the urine showed no 
tendency to reduce solutions of copper before the experiment, it is 
necessary to conclude that this reducing substance is occasioned by 
the disturbance of the economy resulting from the experiment itself. 
Again, since the administration of chloroform is now recognised as 
able to establish such a condition in healthy animals by mere inhala- 
tion, and as I have never succeeded in producing these conditions 
without having employed this anaesthetic, I am disposed to attribute 
the appearance of this reducing substance to the effect of the 
chloroform inhaled, although it does not at present seem possible to 
appreciate in what particular manner or by what altered process of 
metabolism it is brought about. 
The explanation, further, of these appearances in these results 
upon one side only, does not seem to be very simple, but two 
theories may be offered as capable of accounting for these results — 
firstly, this reducing substance may be circulating in the blood 
as the result of the conditions under which the animal experi- 
mented upon has been placed, and that it may be eliminated by 
the one kidney alone, since the action of the cells of that organ 
are completely cut off from the central nerve influences, which 
hold the other organ in check ; or, secondly, this substance may be 
formed in the cells of the one organ alone, owing to the fact that 
there is a greater activity produced in them by section of the nerves, 
