254 HALOIDS AND HALOID BASES. 



however, always observed a soft buttery fat. I have never met 

 with true milky, or chylous urine, where the turbidity and colour 

 were owing to the presence of fat ; for this species of urine seemed 

 to owe its peculiar character to a large quantity of pus-corpuscles, 

 held in suspension, which in all the cases I examined, originated in 

 the kidneys, and were not dependent on vesical catarrh. Where 

 milky urine has been found to contain a large quantity of fat, it 

 may be owing, as in Raver's case*, to milk that had been purposely 

 added, in order to deceive the physician. 



It would be very important, in reference to the diagnosis of 

 Bright's disease, if we could confirm the conjecture advanced by 

 Oppolzer, that in this disease, at any rate when there is fatty 

 degeneration of the kidneys, the urine contains fat. I have, unfor- 

 tunately, hitherto been unable to confirm this conjecture, for even 

 where a post mortem examination showed decided fatty degenera- 

 tion of the kidneys., the urine exhibited no microscopic fat-globules, 

 nor did the ether extract any trace of fat. In one case only, where 

 the urine removed from the bladder after death, contained the 

 well-known epithelium cylinders, could I discover fat-globules. I 

 cannot concur with Virchow in his opinion, that the strongly 

 tinged epithelium of the tubes of Bellini contains fat, or that such 

 cells are to be regarded as evidences of the existence of fatty 

 degeneration. 



Origin. When we consider that vegetable food contains a 

 greater or lesser quantity of fat, and that we find large quantities of 

 the most ordinary vegetable fats accumulated in the animal organ- 

 ism, we might be disposed to infer that a vegetable diet was fully 

 adequate to the nourishment of animals, since it has been discovered, 

 or rather demonstrated, that it contains sufficient quantities of 

 albuminous substances to compensate for the waste of the nitro- 

 genous tissues. This view is daily confirmed by anatomical as well 

 as purely physiological observations and experiments. Every 

 farmer is well aware that cows will yield more butter when kept 

 upon food abounding in fat, than when kept on fodder deficient 

 in that ingredient, and that in rainy seasons, when plants contain 

 less fatty matter, cows, although yielding large quantities of milk, 

 give less butter than in dry seasons, although their food may be 

 rich and good. If two organisms, similar in all respects, and under 

 similar relations, partake of food differing in its quantity of fat, 

 there will be a difference in the deposition of fat. It cannot be 

 doubted that a large portion of the fats passes from the food into 

 * L' Experience, 1838. No. 42. 



