Pr. Venables on the Cystic Oxide, &c. 33 



an interval of a day or two a calculus is voided. Upon one 

 occasion a great number of small ones, about the size of small 

 peas, were passed, all of which were connected together like 

 beads on a string. None of these, however, have been pre- 

 served, nor has their nature been positively ascertained. 



OF THE URINE. 



Sensible and mechanical properties. • — On the 30th June, 

 1828, 1 for the first time obtained a specimen of the urine passed 

 by this patient. It was passed in medium quantity. It was 

 of a greenish-yellow colour, something like the rind of a melon 

 when nearly ripe. The taste was slightly saline. The smell 

 was very peculiar, and, I am satisfied, characteristic, as I had 

 never before met with any thing similar. The only thing that 

 I consider bears the slightest resemblance to it is the odour of 

 the sweet-briar. If we imagine this odour adulterated with a 

 foetid urinous one, some idea, though I acknowledge an inade- 

 quate one, may be formed of the smell of this urine. Its con- 

 sistence was oily, that is, the finest kind of oil, and its specific 

 gravity 1.022. It was opalescent and turbid, apparently from 

 the mechanical suspension of an opalescent impalpable powder. 

 On being allowed to remain at rest, only a part of this amor- 

 phous pulverulent mass subsided to the bottom of the vessel. 

 What separated seemed to subside enveloped in a kind of 

 mucus mixed with coagulated fibrine ; but a sufficient quantity 

 to render the urine opalescent remained in permanent me- 

 chanical suspension, although left at rest for several days. The 

 upper surface of the fluid, however, for the depth of about two 

 lines, became rather clearer, so as to resemble a film of oil 

 floating on a denser and more opake fluid. That the opales- 

 cence arose from the mechanical suspension of an amorphous 

 powder, became evident by passing the urine through a filter, 

 it passing through clear and transparent, of a deep sherry-wine 

 colour, slightly tinged with green. What remained on the filter 

 consisted principally of the cystic oxide *, intermixed with a 



♦ Hence it may be inferred that the cystic oxide exists for the most part in a 

 state of mechanical suspension, rather than of chemical solution, in the urine. 

 This would still further appear from the fact that acetic acid and the other preci- 

 pitating re-agents threw down very little — indeed scarcely any more — cystic oxide 

 from the Jillered urine, though this principle was abundantly separated by the 



JAN. — MARCH, 1830. D 



