The contribution of French-speaking scientists to the origins of renal physiology and pathophysiology (1790-1910)

Abstract

Some contributions: (1) urinary urea, its chemical composition and physiological meaning, Fourcroy and Vauquelin (1790-1808); (2) in binephrectomized animals blood urea is high and chemically identical to that of urine, Prevost and Dumas (1821); (3) urea level in renal vein blood is 50% of that in the arteries, Picard (1856); (4) retained potassium is the uremic poison, Feltz and Ritter (1881); (5) polyuria induced by intravenous injections of sugars or urea, Richet and Moutard Martin (1880); is the kidney in command of the concentration of the blood? Using cryoscopy, Hédon got the clue, the osmotic load (1900); (6) methylene dye excretion measures the global renal function and thus the degree of renal failure, Achard and Castaigne (1897); (7) the disentanglement of chronic uremia and edema, Widal and Achard (1900-1910); (8) evaluation of the global renal function by the ratio plasma urea/urine urea output, Ambard's Constant (1905), initial step of the concept of clearance; (9) a circulating nephropoietic factor in one-kidney animals, Carnot (1910). In bled animals he also disclosed a hemopoietic factor which later became the renal erythropoietin.