AZOTURIA. 
95 
Disease also causes the appearance of abnormal coloring- 
matter or of substances transformable into coloring matter, 
among which are found those that in urine take on a red colora¬ 
tion under the influence of perchloride of iron, as leticin, tyrosin, 
and all the imperfect excrementitious products which arise from 
insufficient elaboration on the part of the liver, and many other 
toxic substances. 
Bladder. —The bladder also plays an important part in this 
disease, as distention of the bladder starts sensory impulses, 
which are conducted to the spinal cord through the posterior 
roots of the third, fourth and fifth sacral nerves. 
As soon as the bladder becomes distended the sphincter be¬ 
comes mechanically dilated and the retained urine is apt to un 
dergo ammoniacal fermentation. This evil you can remedy some¬ 
what by the use of the catheter as often as you think necessary. 
Urine. —Now, as to what may be discovered from the urine 
in conjunction with this disease. 
According to chemistry, the great number of high or low- 
colored urines or any alteration in urine, are not original pro¬ 
ducts, but result from decomposition of urea and uric acid and 
of the recomposition of these into new forms. The slightest 
disturbing influences seem capable of producing these changes. 
There is a wide difference between the physical character of 
sugar and that of oxalic acid, and between that of albumen and of 
uric acid, and yet they have so close a resemblance in their chem¬ 
ical composition as is generally sufficient in a single element. 
One of them should be sufficient to create another. Such at¬ 
tempts appear still more likely to be unsuccessful when it is 
considered that the morbid state of the urine is for the most part 
an effect rather than a cause of disease—the result either of in¬ 
flammation or some structural lesion of the kidney or some con¬ 
stitutional trouble. 
Still oftener the case is some derangement of the digestive 
function ; the primary assimilation of the food may be imper¬ 
fect, and hence the whole function of nutrition becomes dis¬ 
torted. 
