Diseases of the bladder, prostate gland, and urethra : including a practical view of urinary diseases deposits and calculi / by Frederick James Gant.

Gant Frederick James, 1825-1905.

Date:: 1884

Credit: Diseases of the bladder, prostate gland, and urethra : including a practical view of urinary diseases deposits and calculi / by Frederick James Gant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$Microscopical Characters.—Crystals in the shape of rhombic plates, six-sided, aggregated into roundish granules, or'as'single plates (Fig. 81). Chemical Tests.—The composition of diabetic urine is peculiar in containing a foreign ingredient—glucose, or sugar of the grape, and which is excreted, possibly, in quantity varying from 1 lb. to 2 lbs. or more, in twenty- four hours ; whereby a patient may pass more than his own weight of sugar in the course of a few months. The urine contains, also, usually rather more than less of its ordinary constituents. Diagnostic Value.—Saccharine matter is occasionally present, and as a mere trace, in healthy lu-ine; but any more obvious quantity, and persistent, is abnormal. To estimate the pathological significance of diabetic urine, therefore, the constant presence of sugar in any notable quantity, rather than its absolute amount, is the diagnostic sign of consequence. To detect this morbid condition in its mfancy—mdi- cating a corresponding blood-condition—certain tests, more dehcate even than the production of the rhombic crystals, can be applied with signal success. Teast, or Fermentation Test.—This is easily applied. Add a small quantity of yeast to some of the suspected urine in a saucer; invert a test-tube filled with this mixtiu-e, and stand it in the saucer; then place the whole in a warm room. If sugar be present, fei-menta- tion soon begins, and bubbles of carbonic acid rising in the tube accumulate and depress the fluid. ]\linute fungoid growths also are developed, which can be seen with the aid of the microscope. Another fungus—peiji-$