ITS CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS. 401 



alkaline chlorides are diminished in an extraordinary degree under 

 certain pathological conditions ; this being especially the case 

 whenever copious transudations or exudations have been separated 

 from the blood within a short period of time ; but it is remarkable 

 that this diminution is frequently only observable when we take into 

 comparison the quantity of the alkaline chlorides discharged with the 

 urine in twenty-four hours ; this occurs, for instance, in acute dropsy, 

 the acute form of Bright's disease, in copious diarrhoea, in cholera 

 and typhus. On the other hand, the diminution of the metallic 

 chlorides is frequently so considerable in inflammations accom- 

 panied with very copious exudations, that nitrate of silver will 

 scarcely induce any decided turbidity in the urine when first dis- 

 charged. This was observed by Heller,* first in pneumonia, and 

 afterwards in other considerable inflammations. In the meanwhile 

 this phenomenon is not constant, and may, perhaps, depend upon 

 the amount of exudation that is formed. It is certain that this 

 deficiency of the alkaline chlorides in the urine is of very short 

 duration ; indeed, 1 have never found it continue longer than three 

 days. The quantity of the chloride of sodium rises, according to 

 Heller, above the normal mean on the beginning of the resorption of 

 the inflammatory exudation ; but, although this may be possible, or 

 even probable, it has certainly not as yet been proved ; for, as we 

 shall soon see, the method recommended by Heller does not afford 

 the means of ascertaining the normal quantity of the chloride of 

 sodium, or even of detecting a small excess above the average. 



We have already spoken (in vol. i., p. 449) of the presence of 

 alkaline sulphates in the urine ; and it, therefore, only remains for 

 us to state, that Heller has also attempted to investigate the fluc- 

 tuations in the quantity of sulphates contained in morbid urine, 

 by his method of applying baryta salts to urine which had been 

 previously acidified. From these observations, he thinks he has found 

 that the sulphates increase in the urine in inflammatory diseases 

 proportionally to the degree of inflammation which is present. 



I did not succeed in confirming Heller's statement in three 

 successive series of experiments which I made on the urine dis- 

 charged in the course of twenty-four hours by one pleuritic and two 

 pneumonic patients. Relatively, the urine certainly contained more 

 sulphates than in its normal state ; that is to say, in 100 parts of 



* Arch. f. Chem. u. Mikros. Bd. 4, S. 516526. [We may also refer the 

 reader to a Memoir by Dr. Beale, " On the diminution of the chlorides in the 

 Urine, or their absence from that fluid, in cases'of Pneumonia," in the Transactions 

 Of the Med. Chir. Soc. for 1852, Vol. 35. G. E. D.] 



VOL. II. 2 D 



