Formation of urobilin / by Vaughan Harley.

  • Harley, Vaughan.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Formation of urobilin / by Vaughan Harley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    containing urobilin, in the space of a few minutes a bright rose-red colour is developed. The rose-coloured extract when separated and examined with the spectroscope shows the uro- bilin band between F and b. In the presence of bile, in consequence of the conversion of bilirubin into biliverdin, the perchloride of mercury gives a bright green colour, so that this test is applicable to both substances. It is possible by this method to recognise very small quantities of urobilin. The colour is distinctly visible on a fragment of faeces after the treatment with perchloride of mercury when examined under the microscope, and until we had this method it was extremely difficult to recognise urobilin in small quantities in the faeces. On examining the different parts of the intestines and intestinal walls Schmidt found that the urobilin reaction yielded results differing not only in different parts of the intestine, but also in different cases. In the small intestine he examined twenty-five cases in all, and found in one-third of them a faint red coloration in the upper part of the jejunum, both in the contents and in the wall. Most of the cases were children. In another third of the cases examined the small intestine showed no red colouration whatever, or at the most only a faint pink colour towards the lower end of the ileum. In them the ileo-csecal valve was strongly demarcated by the deep colour of the caecum and the faint colour of the ileum. In the other third of the cases the colour stood between the two first mentioned. With regard to the large intestine, the upper part, close under the caecum and in a few cases also the vermiform ap- pendix, gave a deep pink coloration with the perchloride of mercury. This was less and less pronounced in the ascending transverse and descending colon. The red coloration of the walls slowly faded away until it entirely disappeared towards the sigmoid flexure. The contents of the large intestine, on the other hand, yielded a distinct pink colour as far as the anus. The results I have obtained in the human subject are very Bimilar. The contents of the various parts of the intestines were placed in small porcelain capsules and treated with the per- chloride of mercury. The intestines themselves were likewise treated with the reagent after being well washed. The results obtained in this way led me to suppose that the urobilin reac-