ALBUMINOUS URINE. 
11 
health now, and had been in perfect health just before, and the 
urine is no longer albuminous, 1 do not believe there is any more 
foundation for supposing the existence of organic disease, than there 
is for supposing that cancer of the stomach is present in every case 
of temporary dyspepsia, because, when people die of dyspepsia, we 
find more or less organic disease. It is the business of those who 
make these assertions to prove their correctness ; to prove that these 
persons have organic disease of the kidney, and not our business to 
disprove it. Because, when a person dies making albuminous urine, 
you always find structural disease of the kidney, it does not follow 
that, when the urine temporarily presents the same phenomenon, 
and the person recovers, he has had any thing more than a func- 
tional complaint. Because the affection of the kidneys may arrive 
at such a degree of intensity as to destroy life, and you then always 
find organic disease, it does not follow that the temporary forma- 
tion of albumen should be any thing more than a functional disturb- 
ance of the kidneys. I should draw just the opposite conclusion ; 
and should suppose that, if the symptoms were temporary, the dis- 
ease must be functional. Dr. Mackintosh informed me that some 
medical students in Edinburgh had lately ascertained that, when 
they ate pie-crust, and it produced dyspepsia, their urine became 
albuminous. They made this experiment over and over again ; 
and the circumstance is nothing more than I should expect*.” 
These medical quotations shew us how long and how much the 
present subject has engaged the attention of some of the most emi- 
nent physicians of our own day ; at the same time, they appear to 
demonstrate to us, that albuminous urine may exist without organic 
disease of kidney — may be the result of simple functional disor- 
der of the gland — may even proceed from indigestion — nay, from 
disease of liver. All these are facts, however, which we, as 
veterinarians, must receive cum grano satis. We must regard 
them only as starting-posts from which we may safely set off on 
our inquiry, and which may prove to be well founded or not on 
further investigation. We know how little the horse is the sub- 
ject of dyspepsia ; we know how less still his aliment is varied, or 
of that kind likely to render him so : we have, therefore, stronger 
grounds than surgeons for believing that this change in the urine 
is the effect of some altered state, functional or organic, of the 
kidneys. I would, therefore, still counsel the veterinarian to con- 
tinue to regard the appearance as an important aid, on occasions, 
* “ Dr. Graves, the eminent Professor of the Institute of Medicine in the 
School of Physic in Ireland, has done much to dissolve the supposed invari- 
able connection between albuminous urine and disease of the kidney. He 
shews that it often depends on disease of the liver." See his valuable papers 
in the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science. 
