VARIATIONS IN THE ACIDITY OF THE URINE. 261 
On the first day of this set the acidity fell in a very 
marked degree both after breakfast and dinner; on the 
second, the urine became neutral after breakfast for an 
hour, and alkaline and cloudy for two hours after dinner, 
and continued neutral yet another hour; on the third day 
it was alkaline after both meals; and on the fifth morning 
a breakfast of four pieces of dried toast and a cup of coffee 
without milk made the water passed two hours after turbid 
from phosphates, and highly alkaline ; it lost its acid re- 
action after dinner also on this day. Here lies abundant 
evidence that vegetable food is able to depress the reaction 
of the urine equally with mixed diet. 
3. Effect of purely Animal Food. 
As in the case of vegetable food, two sets of experi- 
ments were made to ascertain the power of purely animal 
food to depress the acidity of the urine. The first set did 
not embrace the twenty-four hours, but began at seven in 
the morning and ceased about ten in the evening. Four 
days are included in this set; three of them alternated 
with days on which vegetable food only was taken at 
breakfast and dinner, but a supper of mixed food with ale 
or porter was taken at night. 
