220 CONJUGATED ACIDS. 



like the former, must rank amongst the excrementitious matters. 

 Although we have no numerical proof that in human urine the urea 

 stands in an inverse ratio to the uric acid, that is to say, that with an 

 augmentation of the uric acid there is a corresponding diminution of 

 the urea, yet the numerical results of Becquerel and others show that 

 there is at least such an approximate ratio. The recent experiments 

 of Wohler and Frerichs,* in which the introduction of uric acid 

 into the organism by the primae vies or by the veins, was followed 

 by an augmentation of the urea and oxalate of lime in the urine, 

 afford tolerably strong evidence that the uric acid in the animal 

 organism undergoes a decomposition into urea and oxalic acid pre- 

 cisely similar to that which can be artificially induced by peroxide 

 of lead. Now, if the urea be produced from the uric acid by the 

 partial oxidation of the latter, anything impeding this process must 

 cause less urea and more uric acid to be separated by the kidneys, 

 and hence we see why the amount of uric acid in the urine must be 

 increased in fevers and other disturbances in the circulation and 

 respiration ; we have seen that in like states oxalate of lime and 

 lactic acid increase for a precisely similar reason, and without 

 wishing to introduce rude chemical views into the science of general 

 life, nothing seems more simple, and in accordance with nature, 

 than this explanation of the origin and augmentation of uric acid. 

 We regard uric acid as a substance which stands one degree higher 

 in the scale of the descending metamorphosis of matter than urea. 

 The present condition of science does not admit of our specially 

 indicating the substances from which it is first produced, or the 

 locality in which it is formed. 



Sediments of urate of soda are commonly ranked amongst the 

 critical discharges. A rational system of medicine can no longer, 

 in accordance with the doctrines of Hippocrates, regard these 

 excretions as true crises of diseases, but must rather consider 

 them only as incidental symptoms, or as necessary consequences 

 of certain processes. In the present day we regard the crises 

 merely as very abundant eliminations of excrementitious matters 

 which must occur when the substances rendered effete during the 

 fever, and which have accumulated in the blood while the functions 

 of the excreting organs were more or less impeded, are fit for 

 simultaneous secretion, and are thus given off to the outer world by 

 their ordinary channels. 



Ann. d. Ch. u. Pharm. Bd. 65, S. 338-342. 



