THE AMINO-ACID CONTENT OF THE BLOOD IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE

Abstract

Among the numerous constituents of the blood stream few are more closely related to many of the fundamental processes of life than the amino-acids. Yet it was only within comparatively recent times (1913) that crystalline amino-acids¹ were actually isolated from the blood stream, and considerable confusion still seems to exist in regard to the amount of amino-acid nitrogen in normal and pathologic blood. Thus in a recent text on biochemistry² the statement is found that "in diabetes mellitus there is an accumulation of amino-acids in the blood and a corresponding increased excretion into the urine. Again in nephritis there is an accumulation of amino-acids in the blood." On another page of the same book one finds the statement that "amino-nitrogen rarely rises in the blood. Even during severe nephritis there is no characteristic increase in amino-nitrogen." In a recent book on blood chemistry,³ the author said that "a definite rise