PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE URINE. 639 



This substance yields no reducing body on boiling with acids, and belongs 

 chiefly to the papilla?, and is, this author says, a nucleoalbumin 

 (nucleoproteid?). The cortical substance is richer in another nucleoal- 

 bumin (nucleoproteid) unlike mucin. It has not been decided what 

 relation this last substance bears to HALLIBURTON'S nucleoprotein. 

 The nucleic acid obtained by MANDEL and LEVENE from beef kidneys 

 yielded guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine on cleavage. Accord- 

 ing to MORNER 1 chondroitin-sulphuric acid occurs as traces. MANDEL 

 and LEVEXE 2 have also obtained glucothionic acid from the kidneys. 

 Fat occurs only in very small amounts in the cells of the convoluted 

 tubules. FRANKEL and NoGUEiRA 3 found a cephalin-like substance, 

 a triamido-diphosphatide and a diamino-monophosphatide. Among 

 the extractive bodies of the kidneys one finds purine bases, also urea, 

 uric acid (traces), glycogen, leucine, inosite, taurine, and cystine (in ox- 

 kidneys). The quantitative analyses of the kidneys thus far made 

 possess little interest. OIDTMANN 4 found 810.94 p. m. water, 179.16 

 p. m. organic and 0.99 p. m. inorganic substance in the kidney of an 

 old woman. 



The fluid collected under pathological conditions, as in hydronephrosis, is 

 thin with a variable but generally low specific gravity. Usually it is straw-yellow 

 or paler in color, and sometimes colorless. Most frequently it is clear, or only 

 faintly cloudy from white blood-corpuscles and epithelium-cells; in a few cases 

 it is so rich in form-elements that it appears like pus. Protein generally occurs 

 in small amounts; occasionally it is entirely absent, but in a few rare cases 

 the amount is nearly as large as in the blood-serum. Urea occurs sometimes 

 in considerable amounts when the parenchyma of the kidneys is only in part 

 atrophied; in complete atrophy the urea may be entirely absent. 



I. PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF URINE. 



Consistency, Transparency, Odor, and Taste of Urine. Under 

 physiological conditions urine is a thin liquid and gives, when shaken 

 with air, a froth which quickly subsides. Human urine, or urine from 

 carnivora, which is habitually acid, appears clear and transparent, often 

 faintly fluorescent, immediately after voiding. When allowed to stand 

 for a little while human urine shows a light cloud (nubecula), which 

 consists of the so-called " mucus," and generally also contains a few 

 epithelium cells, mucus-corpuscles, and urate-granules. The presence 

 of a larger quantity of urates renders the urine cloudy, and a clay-yellow, 



1 Halliburton, Journ. of Physiol., 13, Suppl., and 18; Liebermann, Pfliiger's Arch., 

 50 and 54; Lonnberg, see Maly's Jahresber., 20; Mandel and Levene, Zeitschr. f. 

 physiol. Chem., 47; Morner, Skand. Arch. f. Physiol., 6. 



2 Zeitschr. f . physiol. Chem., 45. See also Mandel and Neuberg, Bioch. Zeitschr., 13. 



3 Bioch. Zeitschr., 16. See also Dunham, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 64. 



4 Cited from v. Gorup-Besanez, Lehrb., 4. AufL, 732. 



