URINARY SYSTEM. 471 



for the designation of urine which is turbid or alkaline owing 

 to some pathological cause, hence called jumentous urine. 

 The phosphates are usually made up of the alkaline earthy 

 salts, there being in the urine passed during 24 hours about 

 one or two grms. of phosphate of lime and magnesia. It is 

 worthy of note that the kind of alimentation has a certain 

 influence upon the presence of the phosphates and sulphates 

 in the urine ; we usually take but a small quantity of sulphur 

 and phosphorus as contained in the organic products (albu- 

 men, proteiue, gluten, etc.). When the proteine substances 

 are burnt up in the organism and transformed into urea, they 

 cause an oxidation of the sulphur and phosphorus, and form 

 sulphuric and phosphoric acid. This explains the fact that the 

 phosphates and sulphates simultaneously vary in quantity in 

 the urine, according to the same laws as urea. We have 

 already learned that a certain amount of sulphur (nearly 4 

 grms. in 24 hours) is found in the bile as tauro-cholic acid. 



The pretended Kiesteine (more properly Kyeste'ine), no- 

 ticed by Nauche and Golding-Bird, occurring in the form of 

 a peculiar albuminoid pellicle floating on the urine of a preg- 

 nant woman does not constitute a definite compound. This 

 is composed of an ammoniaco-magnesia phosphate and of a 

 substance not yet precisely determined, called gravidine (a 

 particular albuminoid compound) by J. Starck, a caseine sub- 

 stance (the elements of the commencing secretion of milk 

 which passes by reabsorption into the blood and thence into 

 the urine) by G. Bird, mucus and a proteine substance by 

 Lehmann, infusoria and vibriones by Bechamp, etc. 



There is nothing precisely known of the influence of the 

 nervous system upon the urinary secretion. From what pre- 

 cedes it is probable that this influence is reduced to a vaso- 

 motor action, which modifies the afflux and presence of the 

 blood in the capillaries of the glomeruli and renal tissue. 



JVI. Peyrani has sought, by means of numerous researches 

 on animals, to explain the part played by the great sympa- 

 thetic on the urinary secretion. He determined the amount of 

 urine and urea first secreted during the six hours preceding 

 experimentation, then the six hours during the galvanic irri- 

 tation of the sympathetic, and again during the six hours 

 succeeding the section of the sympathetic; and observed 

 that this quantity was greatest in those cases where the 

 sympathetic had been cut (a section of the cervical portion 

 of the sympathetic was made), while galvanization of the 

 distal end of the divided sympathetic brought the quantity 



