It is a well known fact that small amounts of chlorides are found in the urine during the course of lobar pneumonia. It was shown in 1850 by Redtenbacher. It is a constant and as a rule so well pronounced a phenomenon that it can be used as a symptom of some diagnostic importance.
Of course a good deal of interest is attached to the pathologic basis of this phenomenon, and a good many investigators have been occupied with it, e. g., von Terray,1 Jochmann and Bittorf,2 von Hoesslin3, Scheel4 and others, but as far as I know no completely satisfactory explanation has been given.
The first question that arises is whether it is a genuine retention of chloride that exists during pneumonia. In such a highly febrile disease the patient of course eats little, and one might think that the slight excretion of chlorides was due to the slight