THE RATIONALE OF TESTS OF RENAL FUNCTION

It did not escape clinicians 1 of a century ago that when a patient with severe renal disease ingests asparagus, turpentine or other substances which impart a characteristic odor to the urine of healthy people, this odor does not appear in the urine. These keen observations were really tests of renal function, in many ways superior to some of the complicated tests that have since been introduced. In this paper I desire to point out that elaborate procedures are unnecessary for clinical purposes, the same end being attained by very simple methods, provided the clinical features of the case are always kept in the foreground. It will first be necessary to consider certain aspects of the pathologic physiology of the kidneys. THE UNITARY NATURE OF IMPAIRMENT OF RENAL FUNCTION It is widely held that disease of the kidney may injure the ability of the organ to excrete individual substances, while