A note on very high specific gravity of the urine in healthy women / by Herbert French.
- French, Herbert Stanley, 1875-1951.
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: In copyright
Credit: A note on very high specific gravity of the urine in healthy women / by Herbert French. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![A NOTE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF THE URINE IN HEALTHY WOMEN. Though the following note refers to a subject which is by no means new, there seems to be too little stress laid upon certain normal differences which are apt to be observed between the urines of women upon the one hand and of men upon the other. When one is confronted in a case of examination for life insurance with a urine the specific gravity of which is 1040, one is at first inclined to think that the person who passed that urine must be abnormal, and not unnaturally one tests that urine with extreme care for sugar. The fact that specific gravities of 1035 or even 1040 may occur without there being anything the matter with the person at all is difficult to convince oneself of, until one has seen a number of cases. Such cases, however, do not seem to be very uncommon amongst women. The following instances occurred in the course of examining 150 apparently healthy nurses. In no case was any sugar to be detected in the urine, either by Fehling’s or by the phenyl-hydrazine test. One obvious suggestion is that a high specific gravity of this kind must indicate that the person is drinking far too little fluid, and is therefore passing a very concentrated urine. This is doubtless true to some extent, but it is not entirely true that if a woman drinks a normal amount of fluid per diem she will necessarily have a urinary specific gravity of 1025 or less; for whenever a nurse has been found to have a specific gravity at first examination of [:-58i/on]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22425020_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
