The urine, in health and disease, or, A simple explanation of the physical properties, composition, and uses of the urine, of the functions of the kidneys, and of the treatment of urinary disorders / by Arthur Hill Hassall.

  • Hassall, Arthur Hill, 1817-1894.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The urine, in health and disease, or, A simple explanation of the physical properties, composition, and uses of the urine, of the functions of the kidneys, and of the treatment of urinary disorders / by Arthur Hill Hassall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in tlie red corpuscles, and is furnished by the decay and dissolution of those corpuscles, which is continually in progress. This single fact furnishes us with the clue to the whole pathology deducihle from the varying tints and colours of the urine. Now, this colouring matter may he deficient or in excess: it is deficient in all pale urines, when these are not greatly diluted, as in hysteria, chlorosis, &c.; and it is in excess whenever the urine is high coloured. The urine is high coloured in all active diseases, in- flammations, and fevers; also, wherever the action of the great decarhonizing organs—the skin, liver, and lungs— is defective; wherever, also, the circulation is much dis- turbed, as in most diseases of the heart. Much valuable information may therefore he derived from attention to the colour of the urine, and a know- ledge of the causes by which it is influenced. Valuable information may likewise be obtained by examining not only the colour of the urine, but also that of the urates so frequently found in it as deposits, es- pecially where serious functional or organic disease exists. The bright pink, almost scarlet, colour of the urates occurring in hectic fever with suppuration, as in phthisis, is well known: they are often coloured to nearly the same extent in rheumatic fever, and in most diseases of the heart. When the urine is very high coloured, the red tint of the urates is often much obscured and altered; so that it is safest, in order to judge correctly of their colour, to collect them on a filter, which may be done, with a piece of blotting-paper, in a few minutes. In all cases, then, in which the urine is unnaturally pale or high coloured, we must determine to which of