Collected Essays and Articles on Physiology and Medicine (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903. Excerpt: ... ON THE EFFECTS OF SEVERE AND PRO-TRACTED MUSCULAR EXERCISE; WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS INFLUENCE ON THE EXCRETION OF NITROGEN Published in the " New York Medical Journal" for June, 1871. PART I In May, 1870 I had an opportunity of examining the entire urine passed by Weston, the pedestrian, during the time occupied in accomplishing the feat of walking one hundred miles in twenty-one hours and thirty-nine minutes. The urine on that occasion happened to have been passed into a single vessel and had been undisturbed until it came into my possession. I had no means of obtaining any reliable scientific information in regard to the quantity and character of the food taken during that time, nor had I obtained, for purposes of comparison, a specimen of the urine passed on the day before this muscular effort. It was several weeks, indeed, before I could get the urine of twenty-four hours of comparative repose; which I was forced to take as representing the normal excretion. I simply took the material for scientific analysis as I could best obtain it and published the results with a statement of the facts, not at that time entertaining any definite hope of being able to repeat the investigations under more favorable conditions. I was, of course, well aware of the necessity of carefully estimating certain constituents of the food, and of comparing the elimination of effete matters, particularly those containing nitrogen, with the matters ingested. Had I been sure of an opportunity to study the effects upon excretion of excessive and prolonged muscular exercise, such as has since presented itself, my first experiments, of the unavoidable defects of which no one could be more sensible than I, would not have been published. My first observations have been excluded i...