188 BERZELIUS ON THE URINE. 
attacked by disease of the heart, and presenting a very in- 
tense leucophymasia, and the diuretic effect of the new me- 
dicine was powerful. — The Chemist, from Journ. de Med. 
de Bordeaux. 
ART. LI II. — BERZELIUS ON THE URINE. 
The distinguished Swede, after giving a most elaborate 
account of the composition of this animal fluid, proceeds to 
point out how much its composition is affected by a variety 
of substances when taken into the stomach. The following 
examples will abundantly prove the truth of this remark. 
After the free use of mercurial ointment, the urine is 
found to contain salts of this metal in minute quantities. 
To detect their presence, we have only to dry the sediment 
that is precipitated, and then to calcine it: globules of mer- 
cury may thus be obtained. 
Nitre, the yellow prussiate of potash, and many metallic 
salts, especially those of iron, may readily be dissolved in the 
urine not long after they have been swallowed. 
After the employment of large quantities of any ferru- 
ginous preparation, the urine sometimes acquires a feeble 
bluish or greenish hue — owing, says Berzelius, to the union 
of the iron with the ferrocyanic acid, which may be genera- 
ted by the decomposition of different animal matters with- 
n the body itself. 
Soon after tartaric or oxalic acid has been taken into 
the stomach, the urine often deposits, as it cools, oxalic or 
tartrate of lime — a deposit that is increased by the addition 
of the chloruret of lime to the fluid. The malic, citric, and 
tartaric acids render the urine more or less decidedly acid. 
