434 
THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
bulb, if that be possible. There are also other disadvantages. The interior of the 
long tube, on which are the markings, is apt to become more or less opaque, and 
cleansing is not always easy, owing to the shape and the consequent difficulty of 
reaching and removing any deposits that may have been thrown down inside during 
or after the chemical reaction. The pipette with rubber appendage for projecting the 
i c.c. ot urine is not very easily manipulated. The dangers have already been 
alluded to. One cannot be certain that some of the adjacent air has not at the same 
time been introduced which, of course, will falsify the reading at once. And no second 
or confirmatory experiment is possible with the same charge or instrument until after 
the lapse of a very considerable length of time, too considerable, in fact, for the 
patience of an average practitioner. 
The initial cost of this instrument may be small, but having regard to the price 
of bromine (each capsule containing i c.c, or the equivalent needed for one charge 
of hypobromite, costs in the provinces sixpence or to a keen business man fivepence) 
one finds that this claim to superiority vanishes in the extra cost of raw material 
needed for any series of estimations. 
In the case of other well-known instruments (e.g., Lunge's nitrometer), purport- 
ing to be scientifically accurate, the price bulk and rig-up may be said to preclude safe 
and ready use anywhere save in a Physiological or Chemical Laboratory, where time 
is no object, where there is plenty of table space or elbow room, and where the prolonga- 
tion of a glass tube, one or more feet, into space is of little consequence, especially 
where no unhallowed domestics come periodically to disturb or dust, and where a 
little confusion is not derogatory to social propriety. For example, this nitrometer, 
as used in the Thompson Yates Laboratory, would, in a private consulting room, 
require a special table, corner, and cupboard, or, better say, a special room all to itself, 
so as to avoid the daily risk of being knocked to pieces, and surely it is no exaggera- 
tion to say that there are few places where it is oftentimes more necessary to estimate 
the nitrogenous output of a patient (or to do as much in that direction as possible) 
without delay or disturbance, than in a private consulting room. Besides, in the 
case of this nitrometer, the presence of so much elasticity in the form of india- 
rubber and of so many component parts, in a state of potential instability, and the 
fact of having to tilt and, perhaps, shake the double bottle in which the nitrogen is 
generated, all this is liable in the ordinary course of human imperfection to dislocate 
something, especially the rubber stopper, and not only spoil the experiment but do 
what is worse, namely, spill the caustic hypobromite solution on one's table, or 
garments, or about the room, a consummation too terrible to be contemplated as 
occurring in any well-regulated establishment, however scientifically inclined the head 
of the house might be. It is also, as in the other case, a very decided objection to 
have to touch the bottle with a warm hand at all after the introduction of the urine, 
and the slightest accidental pressure on the rubber stopper, in order to keep it firm 
