URINE. 293 



urea is excreted. As the diabetes becomes developed the urea 

 gradually diminishes as the sugar increases. 



Willis 1 states that the urine is occasionally rather turbid on 

 emission, and has then been found to contain a quantity of 

 albuminous matter in the caseous form. 



According to Schonlein the urine during the early stage of 

 diabetes contains albumen, and in proportion to its increase the 

 urea diminishes : in the second stage the albumen disappears 

 either totally or partially, and sugar takes its place. I have 

 only detected albumen in two cases of diabetic urine, viz., in 

 the case to which I have already referred, in which I analysed 

 the urine at a time when the patient took a good deal of sugar 

 in his drink ; in this case, however, the disease had made consi- 

 derable progress : and in the urine of a girl a few days before 

 her death; in this instance it existed in considerable quantity, 

 amounting to O2 of the urine, or 3'7 of the solid residue. 



Brett 2 found casein and butter in a case of diabetic urine. 



Diabetic urine sometimes contains an insipid species of sugar, 

 which, however, according to Bouchardat, 3 corresponds in all 

 other properties with the ordinary sweet diabetic sugar, pos- 

 sessing the capability of fermenting, and being convertible by 

 acids into sweet sugar. I have had only one opportunity of 

 observing sugar of this nature. 



A girl with diabetes mellitus discharged an abundant quan- 

 tity of very saccharine urine, and the sugar which was obtained 

 from it had all the properties of grape-sugar. Subsequently 

 the strength of the patient, which had been long giving way, 

 decreased to such an alarming extent as to cause apprehensions 

 of her speedy dissolution. Two days before her death the urine 

 was again sent to me for examination ; and I was not a little 

 surprised to find in it a perfectly tasteless sugar soluble in hot 

 spirit, and mixed with a considerable quantity of a gummy 

 matter insoluble in spirit which, on the application of heat, 

 emitted a peculiar odour not unlike that of burned paper. 



The salts in diabetic urine are stated by Gueudeville, Bostock, 



Urinary Diseases and their Treatment, p. 200. 

 London Medical Gazette, July, 1836. 

 Revue Medicale, 1839. 



