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XXXII. Contributions to the Chemistry of the Urine. — Paper IV. 
On so-called Chylous Urine. 
Henry Bence 3 o^^s,M.D.,M.A.Cantab.,F.R.S. .^Physician to St. George' s Hospital. 
Received January 21, — Read March 14, 1850. 
Urine white from the suspension of a quantity of fatty matter in it, has been 
called chylous urine, and the albumen and fibrin which escape from the blood with 
the fat have been considered to belong to the chyle and not to the blood. 
An opportunity of observing a case of this disease having occurred to me, I was 
led to make the following experiments. The conclusions therefrom are,— 
1st. That the fat on which the white colour of the urine depends does indeed ap- 
pear in the urine after the chyle is absorbed, but the albumen, fibrin, blood-globules 
and alkaline salts, may be found in the urine previous to any food being taken, and 
these substances can be made to appear in, or disappear from the urine according as 
the circulation is hurried by motion or quieted by rest. 
2nd. That the disease consists in some slight alteration in the structure of the 
kidney, by which, when the circulation is most active, one or more of the constituents 
of the blood passing through the filter escape from the vessels into the urine. 
The supposition that the disease consists in an accumulation of fat in the blood 
which is thrown out by the kidneys carrying with it albumen, fibrin, blood-globules 
and salts, is altogether disproved, both by actual analysis of the blood itself, and by 
the frequent occurrence of a large jelly-like coagulum in the urine, when no white 
fatty matter can be seen to be present. 
For an account of the patient and for the treatment and its ultimate effect in 
stopping the escape of the white water, which he had passed more or less frequently 
for nine months previous to my seeing him, I must refer to the Medico-Chirurgical 
Transactions for 1850. 
On the 19th of October he came to me, having taken food last at 11a.m. The 
water passed at 2 p.m. solidified like blanc mange in ten minutes. It contained, when 
passed from the bladder, some clots ready-formed. It was very feebly acid to test- 
paper. Thrown on a filter, a very small quantity of reddish streaked fibrin remained 
on it. The filtered fluid, at 60° Fahr., had a specific gravity =1015. It coagulated 
by heat and acid. In appearance it was quite milky, but became clear when agitated 
with a considerable excess of ether. Some perfectly healthy blood-globules were 
seen with the microscope, and the granules of fat were so small as scarcely to be 
resolvable by a high power. 
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