Title: CREATIN AND CREATININ EXCRETION DURING THE PUERPERIUM AND THEIR RELATION TO THE INVOLUTION OF THE UTERUS
Abstract: The retrogressive changes which follow pregnancy restore the mother's body approximately to the condition which existed before conception took place. The restorative process, as it affects the uterus, includes an autolytic phenomenon known as involution, which rapidly reduces the weight of the organ from about a kilogram to 50 or 60 gm. Histologically, the decrease in mass depends on the atrophy of the muscle cells forming the walls of the uterus, and the metabolic end-products which thus arise are eliminated in the urine. Since it is generally admitted that following labor catabolic changes predominate in the metabolism of the uterine muscle cells, it seemed reasonable to suppose that this fact explained the presence of creatin and of a relatively large amount of creatinin in the urine of puerperal women. Indeed, the anatomic and physiologic facts regarding the involution of the uterus accorded so satisfactorily with the urine findings that for