Excerpt from The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1918, Vol. 156 Among all the organs with their varied history as to structure and their variations in function, there is, however, one whose function in one particular respect has not changed from the time when it first began to evolve in the very far past. This organ is the kidney and the function which it performs, as it has performed it far back in the very beginning of the history of vertebrate life, is the regulation of the inorganic composition of the internal medium of the body, which we know as the blood plasma. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.