THE DIETETIC FACTOR IN THE ETIOLOGY OF CHRONIC NEPHRITIS

During the last hundred years, continuous efforts have been made, in laboratory and in clinic, to find the cause or causes of chronic nephritis. The problem is still far from satisfactory solution. It is true that a number of substances experimentally employed, notably several heavy metals, have been shown to produce chronic sclerosing disease of the kidney. But chronic heavy metal poisoning occurs too infrequently to be etiologically important in human chronic nephritis.

It is obvious that causes must be sought, exposure to which are exceedingly common in those parts of the world in which chronic nephritis is prevalent. From time to time clinicians have suspected overeating as a factor in the etiology of chronic nephritis, and, since protein is the only one of the three foodstuffs whose end-products are excreted by the kidney, suspicion rests specifically on the nitrogenous foods. No systematic

study of the relation of diet to