A guide to the examination of the urine : designed chiefly for the use of clinical clerks and students / By J. Wickham Legg, M.D.

  • John Wickham Legg
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to the examination of the urine : designed chiefly for the use of clinical clerks and students / By J. Wickham Legg, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    27/120 (page 15)
    ALBUJEEN ]N TllK UlilNE. restored by a few drops of weak acetic acid, and the in-ino then boiled, and nitric acid added. If alkaline nrine be boiled without previous acidula- tion^ a deposit of pkosphate of lime is almost sure to occur^ which is immediately dissolved on the addition of an acid. If nitric acid be added, before boiling, to an albuminous urine^ the albumen will often not be precipitated on the application of heat. Care must therefore be taken that it is acetic acid which is used in the preparatory acidification of the urine. iv. If the urine be permanently turbid, from any cause^ and it is desired to know accurately whether albumen be present, the urine must be filtered before boiling; in this way very minute quantities may be discovered. The method of testing for albumen^ proposed by Heller, which consists of pouring nitric acid into a test tube^ and allowing the urine to flow down upon the acid, so that the two fluids touch, but do not mix, and observing the layer of coagu- lated albumen thus produced, is open to many notorious fallacies, and does not detect minute quantities; it cannot, therefore, be recommended.