Abstract
Folin and his associates 1 demonstrated that uric acid injected intravenously into dogs in standard amounts disappears from the blood in a characteristic manner, i. e., 70% is destroyed within the first 10 minutes and in 2 hours is down to 2 mg. per 100 cc. of blood. They obtained the same results in Eck fistula dogs and concluded that the process occurs within the blood stream, possibly through some “essential factor” elaborated in the liver. Bollman, Mann and Magath 2 have found that extirpation of the liver in dogs produces an increase in the uric acid of the blood, tissues and urine. When uric acid was injected intravenously into hepatectomized dogs, disappearance was considerably slowed and the uric acid could almost quantitatively be recovered from the urine. It was their opinion that destruction of uric acid in the dog is dependent on the liver.
During studies on the function of the reticuloendothelial system we observed that when 8% india ink in normal saline was continuously injected intravenously into normal dogs, there was an appreciable increase in the uric acid of the blood. For example, after 6 hours, when 600 cc. of ink had been injected into a 14 kilo animal, the blood uric acid level was 3 mg. per 100 cc. This could be due to an increased production of uric acid or to a diminished destruction. Goldzieher and Sherman 3 observed an increase in urea following ink blockade in mice, rabbits and dogs. They interpreted this as due to an increased activity of the reticuloendothelial system. We therefore studied the rate of disappearance of intravenously injected uric acid in animals which had been previously blocked.
The uric acid was injected as in the procedure of Folin, Berglund and Derrick, 100 mg. per kilo body weight, viz., a 2% solution with 0.5% lithium carbonate.
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