Osmotic Pressure Study of Protein Fractions in Normal and in Nephrotic Subjects

In serum of patients with nephrosis both albumin and globulin showed by osmotic pressure nearly double the molecular weights of normal albumin and globulin. In the urines of such patients, on the other hand, both proteins showed molecular weights lower even than in normal serum. The colloidal osmotic pressures were measured by the author's method at such dilutions that the van't Hoff law relating pressures to molecular concentrations could be directly applied. For the albumin and globulin of normal serum the molecular weights found were 72,000 and 164,000 respectively, in agreement with the weights obtained by other methods.