THE URINE QUANTITY.
In healthy adults consuming the ordinary quantities of fluids and solids the daily discharge of urine is 1,250 cc., or 50 fluid ounces, or 3 pints. This quantity is liable to a considerable amount of variation according to the quantity of fluid taken and the amount of perspira tion.
Complete occlusion of the pelves of the kidneys or of their ureters leads to complete suppression of urine. It is not that urine is formed and cannot escape on account of the occlusions, but that the kidneys cease to perform their functions. Suppression of urine is always fatal, but yet can be borne for a number of days almost without symp toms. Sooner or later, however, prostration, delirium, stupor, and the typhoid state are developed.
Severe injuries and surgical operations, especially those on the urethra and bladder, may be followed by a suppression of urine which is often fatal. It is probable that this suppression is due to an acute congestion of the kidneys. Any disturbance of the circulation which produces either acute or chronic congestion of the kidneys regularly diminishes the quantity of urine. So we find that in acute and chronic congestion of the kidney, in acute nephritis, in the exacerba tions of chronic nephritis, and in attacks of contraction of the arteries the quantity of urine is notably diminished.
When the body temperature is considerably higher than the nor mal the urine is diminished in quantity.
In saccharine diabetes patients pass very large quantities of urine, the kidneys being apparently excited to increased activity by changes in the composition of the blood. In cases of insipid' diabetes the quantity of urine of low specific gravity is large, but it is not deter mined why this increase takes place.
In the slow forms of chronic nephritis, whether with or without exudation, it is the rule to have increased quantities of urine of low specific gravity, the quantity being especially large and the specific gravity very low if the vessels are the seat of waxy degeneration. But this increased production of urine may at any time be checked by changes in the heart's action, by contraction of the arteries, or by an exacerbation of the nephritis.