URIC ACID. 201 



Carbon .... .... 5 atoms .... 35*714 



Hydrogen 1 .... 1-191 



Nitrogen 2 .... 33'333 



Oxygen 2 .... 19'048 



Water 1 .... 10714 



100-000 



The atomic weight of the hypothetical anhydrous acid = 937*5, 

 and its saturating capacity = 10 '65 6. There is hardly any 

 other organic acid, whose products of decomposition have been 

 so accurately and so generally examined as those of uric acid, and 

 yet chemists have been unable to establish for it any rational 

 formula. Bensch's discovery of the true atomic weight of uric 

 acid has tended to weaken the views which were previously held 

 regarding the intimate constitution of this acid. If we choose 

 to double the atoms, and if we so far extend the idea of conju- 

 gation, that the conjugating substances may, in their union, lose 

 certain atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, (so that we might regard 

 oxamide as a body composed of oxalic acid and ammonia, and 

 benzanilide as composed of benzoic acid and aniline,) then indeed, 

 much might be explained at which we could not arrive by a strict 

 logical induction. Taking into consideration those substances 

 which for a long time have been regarded as conjugated, it seems 

 that we should only consider as true conjugated bodies those 

 compounds in which two organic bodies unite with one another, 

 the union being accompanied with a loss of water ; which, however, 

 in some cases may be shewn by direct experiment, and in others, 

 may be assumed with great probability, to lie without the true 

 atomic group, and may therefore be regarded as a basic, acid, or 

 saline atom of water. Many of the substances which have been 

 recently regarded as conjugated bodies, undoubtedly contain certain 

 atoms of oxygen and hydrogen less than the anhydrous substances 

 from which they are produced, or maybe supposed to be produced; 

 but this view does not coincide with the original idea of a conju- 

 gated body ; especially when it is probable that in this union one 

 of the substances has contributed the oxygen and the other the 

 hydrogen for the formation and separation of the water. 



It would be equally injudicious, were we not to facilitate the 

 recognition of the metamorphosis or transposition of the atoms of 

 organic substances, by some general remarks on the connection 

 and separation of atoms. 



Such remarks, however, are not based on anything more than a 

 fiction, and do not rest on a conclusion obtained by induction. 



