In this paper we present data which show (1) a quantitative relationship between plasma prqtein content and the tendency to formation of non-cardiac edema in nephritis, (2) demonstrate that the specific gravity of the blood plasma parallels the plasma protein content with sufficient exactness to indicate the level of the latter, and (3) show that the tendency to edema formation is related no less regularly to fall in plasma specific gravity than it is to fall in plasma protein content.That the concentration of protein in the blood plasma of nephritic patients is low was observed by Bright (1836). CsatAry (1891) noted that the deficiency affected the serum albumin more than it did the globulins, so that the albumin: globulin ratio, normally 1.5 to 2.0, fell below 1. These observations have been confirmed and amplified by other authors, whose work up to 1923 has been reviewed by Linder, Lundsgaard, and Van Slyke (1924). Govaerts (1924) has found that the albumin fraction, which suffers as a rule the entire deficit that occurs in the plasma proteins in the nephritic, is osmotically about four times as active per gram as the globulin fraction. Consequently especial interest attaches to determination of not only the total plasma protein content, but also the proportions in it of albumin and globulin. Nevertheless, as we shall show, the tendency to edema, except in rare cases, appears to be correlated about as closely to the total protein as to the albumin fraction, so that as a rule the simpler estimate of total protein content may be used for clinical purposes instead of the more complicated analyses involving separation of ihe albumin and globulin fractions.

An elevated creatinine should not be the only cause for discarding deceased donor kidneys.

The protein content of the plasma of the blood can be calculated from the observed value of the specific gravity of the plasma with sufficient exactness for certain clinical purposes. This correlation was shown by Moore (5) in cirrhosis of the liver, in other diseases in which the liver is involved, in diabetes, in nephritis, and in anemia, and by others. Decreases both in specific gravity and in protein content of the plasma have been shown by Butterfield, Erdwurm and Braddock (6) to be present in nephritis with edema and by Moore and Van Slyke (1) in nephritis with edema, that is to say, in Bright's disease.The physiological variations in the proteins of the plasma and the means by which they may be altered experimentally have not been extensively studied. Greene and Rowntree (7) in 1924 demonstrated that the protein content of serum decreased after forced administra-423

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