the blood (after easy calving with little loss
of blood and before the secretion of milk has been established, or in cases
of sudden suppression of the secretion of milk); (2) under increase of
blood pressure (after deep drinking, after doses of digitalis or broom,
after transfusion of blood from one animal to another, or in disease of the
heart or lungs causing obstruction to the flow of blood from the veins);
(3) after cutting (or disease) of the motor nerves of the vessels going to
the kidneys, causing congestion of these organs; (4) violent exertion,
hence long drives; the same happens with violent, muscular spasms, as from
strychnia poisoning, lockjaw, epilepsy, and convulsions; (5) in most fevers
and extensive inflammations of important organs, like the lungs or liver,
the escape of the albumin being variously attributed to the high
temperature of the body and disorder of the nerves, and to resulting
congestion and disorder of the secreting cells of the kidneys; (6) in burns
and some other congested states of the skin; (7) under the action of
certain poisons (strong acids, phosphorous, arsenic, Spanish flies,
carbolic acid, and those inducing bloody urine); (8) in certain conditions
of weakness or congestion of the secreting cells of the kidneys, so that
they allow this element of the blood to escape; (9) when the feed is
entirely wanting in common salt, albumin may appear in the urine
temporarily after a full meal containing an excess of albumin. It can also
be produced experimentally by puncturing the back part of the base of the
brain (the floor of the fourth ventricle close to the point the injury to
which causes sugary urine). In abscess, tumor, or inflammation of the
bladder, ureter, or urethra the urine is albuminous.

It follows, therefore, that albumin in the urine does not indicate the
existence of any one specific disease, and except when from weakness or
loss of function of the kidney cells, it must be looked on as an attendant
on another disease, the true nature of which we must try to find out. These
affections we must exclude one by one until we are left to assume the
noninflammatory disorder of the secreting cells of the kidney. It is
especially important to exclude inflammation of the kidney, and to do this
may require a microscopic examination of the sediment of the urine and the
demonstration of the entire absence of casts of the uriniferous tubes. (See
"Nephritis," p. 123.)

To detect albumin