Abstract
Ten grams of sodium benzoate were administered to a healthy man on a diet of milk, butter, and cane sugar, i. e., glycocoll-free. The urine was collected at two hour intervals, and the relation between the elimination of hippuric acid and urea studied. As compared with the corresponding control periods on the same diet, there was observed a diminution of the urea-nitrogen eliminated during the first six hours after the benzoate ingestion, a diminution corresponding to the nitrogen eliminated as hippuric acid-nitrogen.
If the hippuric acid-nitrogen be subtracted from the undetermined N (shown in parentheses), the undetermined N is comparable with that of the control periods. This indicates that in man as in rabbits and pigs, the glycocoll available for synthesis into hippuric acid may be derived at the expense of substances whose N normally appears in the urine as urea-nitrogen. At the end of six hours the greater part of the hippuric acid had been eliminated and the urea elimination had become normal again.
No free benzoic acid nor glycuronates could be detected in the urine, indicating a complete conversion to hippuric acid and a very rapid elimination. In order to ascertain whether the rapidity of elimination was influenced by the liquid diet of the preceding experiment, the work was repeated on the same subject on a mixed diet, and on a purine-free diet. In both experiments, the greater part (85-95 per cent) of the hippuric acid was eliminated within six hours. Another subject received six grams of sodium benzoate and eliminated the greater part of the hippuric acid within six hours. An amount of sodium hippurate equivalent to the benzoate fed was administered, and the elimination of the hippuric acid studied.
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