I think that a rapid and easy method for the accurate estimation of chlorids in the urine is timely, and, I trust, well accepted by the busy practitioner to-day, when functional diagnosis has taken so much preponderance over anatomic conception in renal diseases.
The retention of chlorids in our system (chloridemia) is often the first hint we have of, and the prelude to, a more serious morbid condition, namely, the retention of urea (azotemia, Widal). While for the latter we have a direct method of research by the estimation of urea in the blood, for the former the best element of diagnosis is still the relation between ingestion and excretion of the salt. In order to get in time an opinion on the functional capacity of the kidney, our attention therefore must be directed first to the quantitative estimation of chlorids in the urine.
For the last few years I