784 THE URINE. 



and it is one of the many physiological puzzles why the kidne}' 

 epithelia produce, from the alkaline blood, acid urine. The spe- 

 cific gravity varies between 1.015 and 1.022, which depends 

 entirely upon the amount of liquid taken into the body and the 

 nature of the food. The average amount, in twenty-four hours, 

 is 1550 c. c. the solid ingredients representing sixty to seventy 

 grammes (925 to 1080 grains). 



The organic constituents of the normal urine, held in solution, 

 are urea, uric acid, oxalic acid (bound to lime), hippuric acid, lac- 

 tic acid, creatinine the so-called extractive and coloring matters 

 (xan thine, indican) and, according to Briicke, grape-sugar. The 

 inorganic constituents are chloride of sodium, phosphate of soda, 

 magnesia, and calcaria ; sulphates of alkalies and ammonia salts 

 (in the coloring matters). The gaseous constituents are carbonic 

 acid, nitrogen, and oxygen. 



Normal urine is of watery consistence, foaming, if shaken, 

 though the foam soon disappears when at rest. Sometimes the 

 urine gives out a repulsive odor after standing for a short time ; 

 it has a pleasant violet scent after the inhalations of turpentine, 

 and a highly unpleasant odor after the eating of asparagus. 



If left at rest, normal urine exhibits a slight, cloudy sediment 

 more marked, as a general thing, in the urine of women. This 

 consists of mucus, a few flat epithelia from the bladder or the 

 vagina, and mucous corpuscles, which appear as finely granular 

 (hydropic or swelled) plastids in a small number. This sediment 

 commingles easily with the urine upon slightly shaking it. After 

 sexual intercourse, both the male and female urine the male, 

 also, after a "wet dream" contain large numbers of spermato- 

 zoids. Female urine, at the time of menstruation, contains a 

 large amount of blood-corpuscles. As a matter of course, these 

 constituents have no pathological significance. 



After standing for one or more days, fungi appear in the 

 urine. The rapidity of their development depends upon the 

 height of the temperature of the surrounding medium. In acid 

 urine, especially oi'dium, the seed of mildew and afterward the 

 mycelium of mildew, leptothrix, and bacteria, are found, which 

 under these conditions grow very large, and, as a rule, are mo- 

 tionless or moving slowly. Oidium varies in size from a small, 

 homogeneous granule of high refracting power, to a globu- 

 lar or ovoid body, surpassing in diameter considerably that of 

 red blood-corpuscles. So far as I have seen, we have no reason 

 to discriminate between " yeast-plant (Saccharomyces 



