My pulse at 7 A. M. was 91, at 2 P. M. 90, and at 10 P. M. 93.Mean 91.33.

The temperature of the body at the same hours, was respectively 990, 99.5°, and 99.5°.-Mean 99.33°.

At 3 P.M. I abstracted 1350 grains of blood from the median basilic vein, and, upon analysis, found it to be constituted as follows:

The weight of the body at the end of the twenty-four hours was 224.53 pounds; being a loss of .18 pound, or 1260 grains. As, however, 1350 grains of blood were taken from the body, there

was an actual increase of 90 grains, or, more properly, would have been, but for the loss of blood.

The mean height of the barometer was 29.155 inches, and of the thermometer 12.66°.

The general symptoms observed were of the same character as those of the last two days, but more strongly marked.

The urine was highly saccharine, and of the same brown color; resembling Madeira wine.

The immediate effect of the slight abstraction of blood was to relieve the feeling of oppression at the chest; but in an hour it returned with increased violence. The debility was very great.

The experiments with starch were now at an end. Immediately on their termination, I ate a hearty breakfast, but my stomach was in so weak and disordered a condition, that the food was almost instantly rejected. I found that I was obliged to resume my ordinary diet with some degree of caution. After a few days, I became free from all unpleasant symptoms, and rapidly regained my usual good health. It is remarkable, however, that for the first few days. after the conclusion of the experiments, I steadily lost weight, so that on the tenth day, I weighed but 223.18 pounds. Sugar was detected in the urine till the morning of the sixth day.

The accompanying table embraces the main results of the foregoing investigations:—

VOL. X.-37

A consideration of the foregoing investigations, and comparison of the results with those of the standard series, show that under the use of food consisting only of starch and water, the following effects ensued.

Kidneys.-The whole quantity of urine was lessened, as was also the amount of its solid matter, and that of each constituent (urea, uric acid, chlorine, and sulphuric and phosphoric acids). The residue of solid matter remaining after the deduction of the sum of the above named substances was, however, greatly increased.

The diminution in the quantity of urine eliminated, was partly due to the fact that there was a less amount of fluids ingested than during the preliminary series, and partly, that the food was not of a character to maintain the several solid constituents at their ordinary normal amounts. It was from this latter cause that so great a reduction took place in the quantity of urea, uric acid, chlorine, and sulphuric and phosphoric acids. During the present investigations, these substances must have been entirely derived from the disintegrated tissues of the body; the food containing no matter from which they could have been elaborated.

The increase of solid residue was probably owing to the sugar present, and, perhaps, to some other substance containing a large proportion of carbon. The increased depth of color observed in the urine, supports this latter hypothesis. Recent investigations have almost completely established the fact, that the coloring matter of the urine is a vehicle for the removal of carbon which has not been eliminated by other channels.'

The fact that sugar was detected in the urine after a few days' use of the starch, is important physiologically, and must have no little bearing upon the pathology of a disease as yet but little understood.

According to Bernard,' sugar in the animal economy has an internal and external origin, the liver being the organ by which it is formed in the system, and the food furnishing that derived from without. This physiologist is, however, of opinion (and he adduces many striking experiments in support of this theory), that normally the sugar taken into the system with the food, and which enters the portal vein, never reaches the general circulation, but is destroyed

1 Bird. Urinary Deposits, p. 88.

2 Leçons de Physiologie expérimentale. Cours de semestre d'hivers, 1854, 1855. The reader is referred to this work for Bernard's views in full.

by the liver, and transformed into an emulsive substance, possess ing none of the chemical or physical characteristics of sugar. The sugar of the food, therefore, is never normally found as a constituent of the urine. To this rule he makes an exception as regards cases of fasting, and the subsequent ingestion of a large quantity of sugar. Then, he states, absorption from the intestines taking place with increasing energy, a great quantity of sugar is thrown upon the liver, and, being more than it is able to transform, the excess passes into the main circulation, and is found in the urine.

The present investigations, it is seen, are entirely opposed to Bernard's doctrine of the perfect destruction of the alimentary sugar by the liver, as it is not probable the sugar found in my urine could have had any other origin than the food which was transformed into this substance in the intestines, and absorbed as such into the circulation.

In obtaining this result, I am not altogether alone. Von Becker has definitely established the fact, that the amount of sugar in the blood is influenced by the character of the food, and Uhle and Lehmann found it to appear in the urine of rabbits after the injection of a solution containing it into the blood.

I am disposed to regard the appearance of sugar in the urine, ensuing upon the excessive use of amylaceous food, to be due to a deficient relative amount of oxygen in the blood. This hypothesis may be more clearly set forth by recalling the facts, that before assimilation, the starch taken as food is transformed into dextrin, then into glucose or grape sugar, and is chiefly under this form absorbed into the system. The sugar, after its entrance into the bloodvessels (provided a sufficient amount of oxygen be brought into chemical contact with it), is, after undergoing continued metamor phosis, entirely decomposed into carbonic acid and water, and, as such, is eliminated from the pulmonary mucous membrane. A de ficiency of oxygen causes a partial interruption of this process, and a portion of the sugar is merely metamorphosed into fat, and under this form remains in the system. A still greater deficiency of oxygen, or, what amounts to the same, a corresponding increase of the quantity of sugar in the blood, would cause a portion of this latter substance entirely to escape metamorphosis, and this portion would make its appearance as a constituent of the urine if aug mented beyond a definite amount. In support of this theory are to be adduced the numerous carefully conducted investigations of Dechambre, from which it appears that sugar is constantly to be