An inquiry into the nature and treatment of diabetes, calculus, and other affections of the urinary organs : with remarks on the importance of attending to the state of the urine in organic diseases of the kidney and bladder : and some practical rules for determining the nature of the disease from the sensible and chemical properties of that secretion / by William Prout.

Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the nature and treatment of diabetes, calculus, and other affections of the urinary organs : with remarks on the importance of attending to the state of the urine in organic diseases of the kidney and bladder : and some practical rules for determining the nature of the disease from the sensible and chemical properties of that secretion / by William Prout. 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.

    35/350 (page 17)
    ritious sediments occasionally contain nitric acid in some peculiar state of combination. Now the pur- puric acid, or rather the purpurate of ammonia, is only lithic acid modified by the action of the nitric acid. If, therefore, nitric acid and lithic acid exist in the urine together, it is exceedingly probable, or rather certain, that at the temperature of the human body, a portion of the lithic acid will be acted on by the nitric acid, and converted into purpurate of am- monia. These facts, then, especially when taken into account with the absolute identity of tint, are, I think, sufficient to convince every unprejudiced reader that the pink amorphous sediments owe their colour chiefly to the alkaline purpurates, though from the circumstance of their being merely as it were dyed with the purpurates, these cannot be separated, and thus actually be demonstrated to be present. In some forms of disease the urine does really contain an uncombined acid, as will be presently shown ; and in this case the lithate of ammonia is decomposed, and the lithic acid deposited in a crys- tallized form, and nearly pure; thus constituting the disease called gravel. The lithic acid and its compounds may be easily detected by the above singular properties. When they exist abundantly in the urine, this fluid is almost invariably of a deep colour; and if at the same time a free acid be present, the urine is for the most part unusually transparent, and free from mucus. 8. Oxalic acid. This acid is neither found in the c