294 Dr. Schunck on the Occurrence of Indigo-blue in Urine. 
no remarkable or peculiar appearance whatever; they are acid, 
clear, and of the usual colour. Its occurrence, at least if its 
quantity is moderate, is not to be considered as a pathological 
phenomenon. [can at all events state from my own experience, 
that its presence is not attended by any symptoms of ill health 
or feelings of discomfort, and that neither from the state of the 
health nor the appearance of the urine, can any conclusions be 
drawn as to its presence or absence. The small number of 
samples of morbid urine which I had an opportunity of exa- 
mining, yielded, with one exception, no more indigo-blue than 
the generality of healthy urines. Nevertheless, there are no 
doubt diseases in Which the quantity of the indigo-producing 
body may become so large as to constitute a truly morbid sym- 
ptom, and it may therefore become a matter of importance and 
interest for the medical man to have a ready means of detecting 
it. The delicacy of the test which I have described, as well as 
the small quantity of the substance usually present, may be 
judged of from the fact, that by working for several weeks on 
the urine of two individuals, which contamed a comparatively 
large quantity, I obtained one grain of indigo-blue. Even when 
the amount of indigo-blue formed was very small, F always 
found that 16 fluid ounces of urine yielded an appreciable quan- 
tity of it. 
The urine of forty different individuals, all of whom were 
apparently in a good state of health, yielded, with one excep- 
tion only, more or less indigo-blue, when examined in the 
manner just described. These individuals belonged to both 
sexes, and they were of ages varying from 7 to 55. The ma- 
jority were persons of the working classes. The largest quan- 
tity of indigo-blue was obtained from the urine of a man above 
the age of 50, a publican by trade. The urine of a young man, 
aged 32, a servant in my employment, yielded almost as large 
a quantity. Among the rest, the urine of a young man, aged 
25, an engraver, that of a clerk, aged 28, and that of a girl, 
aged 12, who had been a cripple from infancy, were alone 
remarkable for the amount of indigo-blue which they yielded. 
In all these cases the indigo-blue was accompanied by the 
substance imparting to alcohol a purple colour, and which I 
suppose to be indirubine. The other specimens afforded much 
less, sometimes mere traces. In all cases, however, in which 
the urine of the same individual was examined at different 
times, the amount of indigo-blue obtained from it was found 
to vary exceedingly, it being sometimes considerable, and occa- 
‘sionally dwindling down to a mere trace. It was only very 
rarely, however, that none was found. In the case of the 
individual first referred to, the urine gave on one occasion not 
