Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

29/440 (page 13)

acid was added, a flocculent precipitate was the result; the hot fluid was thrown on a filter and the clear filtrate, mixed with thrice its bulk of absolute alcohol, allowed to stand for twenty-four hours. The white precipitate was readily soluble in distilled water, forming a clear solution, the slightly acid solution remained clear on boiling, but became decidedly cloudy on the addition of nitric or acetic acid, and cleared up completely on boiling, the solution containing the nitric acid becoming yellow, and the cloudiness not returning on cooling. The precipitate caused by acetic acid was soluble in excess, but not so that caused by nitric acid. In the solution, again made clear by excess of acetic acid, ferrocyanide of potassium caused a considerable precipitate. The addition of soda and sulphate of copper produced a beautiful violet colour. The behaviour of this precipitate certainly differs in some respects from that of hemi-albumose and especially in this that the precipitate caused by nitric acid and dissolved by heat does not reappear on cooling, but, on the other hand it differs so essentially from the ordinary albumen of the urine that we can only assume that we are dealing with different albumi- nous substances, or that some modification has taken place as a result of the treatment (boiling and alcohol) to which the urine has been subjected. But inasmuch as ordinary albu- minous urine treated in a similar manner does not laecome thus modified, the conclusion is perfectly natural that the case is really one of mixed albuminuria. Additional instances of its occurrence are to be collected. The peculiarity of hemi-albumose (pro-peptone), of not being coagulated by heat, certainly accounts for the fact that so little is known up to the present time of pro-peptonuria. For, in the method commonly used for discovering albumen in urine, viz., boiling, and then adding nitric or acetic acid, its discovery is impossible, unless the mixture is set aside and examined when perfectly cold, but this detail is, as a rule, neglected, and if attended to there would be this source of doubt viz., that uric acid and the products of the urinary colouring matters gradually separate from urine thus treated. It has also been repeatedly pointed out that this test is inadequate in other respects, inasmuch as it is not sufiicient for the detection of very small quantities of ordinary albumen