STUDIES OF UROBILINOGEN

Abstract
Three distinct types of clinical information can be derived from studies of fecal and urinary urobilinogen. Estimations of the urobilinogen of the stool constitute the best single measure of the rate of destruction of red cells. Increase of urobilinogen in the urine is one of the first manifestations of hepatic disease. Combined estimations of the urobilinogen of the stool and of the urine furnish one of the few dependable means of distinguishing between jaundice of intrahepatic origin and jaundice arising from obstruction of the extrahepatic biliary passages. In spite of their potential value, studies of fecal and urinary urobilinogen have not come into general clinical use. This is readily understood when one realizes that most methods for the determination of urobilinogen require several days for the collection of specimens and several hours for the analytic procedures themselves. In the first article of this series there was described a simple and

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