SULPHURIC ACID. 
IOI 
§ 72 -] 
Animal food, although not containing sulphates, yet, from the oxidation 
of the sulphur-holding albumen, produces a urine rich in sulphate. 
Thus Vogel found that a person, whose daily average was 2*02 grms., 
yielded 7-3 on a meat diet. The internal use of sulphur, sulphides, 
and sulphates, given in an ordinary medicinal way, is traceable in the 
urine, increasing the sulphates. In chronic diseases the amount of 
sulphates is decreased, in acute increased. 
Finally, it would appear that the determination of sulphates in the 
urine is not of much value, save when the normal amount that the indi¬ 
vidual secretes is 'primarily known. On the other hand, a low amount 
of sulphates in the urine of a person poisoned by sulphuric acid has not 
been observed within three days of the taking of the poison, and one 
can imagine cases in which such a low result might have forensic 
importance. 
The presence of albumen in the urine has been considered by some 
a constant result of sulphuric acid poisoning, but although when looked 
for it is usually found, it cannot be considered constant. 0. Smoler, 1 
in eighteen cases of various degrees of sulphuric acid poisoning, found 
nothing abnormal in the urine. Wyss 2 found in the later stages of a 
case indican and pus. E. Leyden 3 and Ph. Munn always found blood 
in the urine, as well as albumen, with casts and cellular elements. 
Mannkopf 4 found albuminuria in three cases out of five ; in two of the 
cases there were fibrinous casts ; in two the albumen disappeared at the 
end of the second or third day, but in one it continued for more than 
twenty days. Bamberger 5 has observed an increased albuminuria, 
with separation of the colouring-matter of the blood. In this case it 
was ascribed to the action of the acid on the blood. 
§ 72. The Blood. —In Casper’s case, No. 193, the vena cava of a 
child, who died within an hour after swallowing a large dose of sul¬ 
phuric acid, was filled with a cherry-red, strongly acid-reacting blood. 
Again, Casper’s case, No. 200, is that of a young woman, aged 19, who 
died from a poisonous dose of sulphuric acid. At the autopsy, four 
days after death, the following peculiarities of the blood were thus 
noted :—“ The blood had an acid reaction, was dark, and had (as is 
usual in these cases) a syrupy consistence, while the blood corpuscles 
were quite unchanged. The blood was treated with an excess of abso¬ 
lute alcohol, filtered, the filtrate concentrated on a water-bath, the 
residue exhausted with absolute alcohol, etc. It yielded a small 
quantity of sulphuric acid.” 
Other similar cases might be noted, but it must not for a moment 
1 Archiv der Heilkunde, ed. by E. Wagner, 18G9, Hft. 2, S. 181. 
2 Wiener Medicinal-Halle, 1861, Jahr. 6, No. 46. 
3 Virchow’s Archiv f. path. Anat., 1861, Bd. xxii. Hft. 3 u. 4, S. 237. 
4 Wien. med. Wochenschrift, 1862, No. 35 ; 1863, No. 5. 
6 Wien. Med.-Halle, 1864, No. 29, 30. 
