104 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinhurgh. [sess. 
of renal disease, and that after death the kidneys were normal except 
for a small degree of cirrhosis. The liver was slightly cirrhotic 
and intensely fatty. 
My observations are confined to the determination of the nature 
of the globulin and to the investigation of its source in the body. 
(a) Nature of the Globulin. 
Method of Preparation . — To determine the nature of the globulin, it was 
precipitated from the urine with sulphate of ammonia. The precipitate was 
thrown on a filter-paper, and washed with half-saturated sulphate of ammonia 
solution. It was then placed in a sausage-paper of vegetable parchment, 
a few pieces of thymol being added, and dialysed for four or five days in 
running tap water. Finally, the dialysis was canned on for forty-eight hours 
into distilled water, which was frequently changed. The globulin precipitated 
inside the paper was removed and repeatedly washed with distilled w^ater by 
decantation, until no reaction of proteids or sulphate could be obtained from 
the wash-water. 
The precipitate thus obtained was white and crystalline. 
Spontaneous Crystallisation of Glohulin . — But a most unexpected 
opportunity occurred of studying this globulin. Dr Bramwell found 
that if the urine was kept, sometimes after a day or two, sometimes 
after weeks or months, a copious white precipitate formed, which 
when mixed with the supernatant urine, gave it the appearance of 
watered silk. 
On microscopic examination this deposit was found to be com- 
posed of elongated rhombic crystals, lying either singly or in 
rosettes. 
These crystals are much larger than tyrosin crystals, and, instead 
of being acicular, terminate in a characteristic angulated extremity. 
That these crystals are the globulin substance is shown, not only 
by their being identical in all their characters with the crystalline 
globulins prepared by dialyses, but also by the following observa- 
tions. 
The urine of September 30 was examined on October 14. A 
small deposit of crystals had already formed. These were filtered 
off and weighed, and the proteids in the filtrate estimated. Some 
of the filtrate was set aside till the 27th, when a further crop of 
crystals had separated. These were filtered off and weighed, and 
