56 ON THE ANTISEPTIC SYSTEM 



of perfectly colourless like the first. The two differed also remarkably in their 

 rate of growth, that at the bottom of the vessel springing up with rapidity, 

 so that a month after the commencement of the experiment it occupied about 

 half the mass of the fluid, while the floating kind, though it had been steadily 

 enlarging, had attained only about the size of a pea. Meanwhile the urine 

 had been undergoing a change in chemical constitution, as was indicated by 

 an alteration of its colour from a pale straw to a deep amber tint. But in the 

 meantime, what was the condition of the urine in the three other flasks, with 

 bent necks, of which this is a sample ? You observe it is perfectly clear and 

 bright, free from cloud, scum, or sediment, and it retains its original straw 

 colour, contrasting strikingly with the amber tint of the other. In short, it 

 has precisely the same appearance as it had at the outset. I may add that, 

 on the day after these flasks were prepared, having another similar one at my 

 disposal, I introduced into it some fresh urine from the same source, drew out 

 the neck and bent it into angular form, and treated it like the others, so that 

 I have thus four flasks of boiled urine communicating with the air through bent 

 tubes ; and in all of these the urine has remained with unchanged colour and 

 undiminished transparency. It can hardly be doubted that this completely 

 unaltered appearance of the fluid is associated with absence of putrefaction. 

 I shall take an early opportunity of ascertaining whether such is the fact or 

 not ; but in the meantime, suppose we assume that it is so. [Since the delivery 

 of this address, namely on the 2nd inst. (May 1868), I poured out about half an 

 ounce of urine from one of the flasks with bent neck into a wine-glass, and 

 examined it. Its odour was perfectly sweet, and its reaction faintly acid to 

 litmus paper, while under the microscope it showed not the slightest appearance 

 of anything possessing vitality. I then covered the wine-glass with a piece 

 of sheet gutta-percha to prevent evaporation, and left it at a temperature of 

 about seventy degrees. Three days later it had already lost its brilliant trans- 

 parency,- and a distinct change had occurred in its odour, which had assumed 

 something of the smell that urine has when evaporated to dryness. And under 

 the microscope, organic forms of different kinds were present in abundance, some 

 of them motionless delicate elongated rods (bacteria ?), others with wriggling 

 movements, apparently of vibrionic nature, while there were also numerous 

 amorphous and faint granules, probably also organic. Nine days after the 

 urine had been placed in the glass, two little woolly baUs of fungus were visible 

 in it to the naked eye. In correcting the proof, I may add that the urine is 

 now thronged with fungous growths of at least three different species ; while 

 the odour is highly offensive. But the hot summer weather of the last two 

 months has produced no change in the contents of either of the flasks with 



