Chemical examination of the urinary calculi in the Museum of the Medical Department of Transylvania University : with remarks on the relative frequency of calculus in Lexington, Ky., and the probable causes / by Robert Peter.

  • Peter, Robert, 1805-1894.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemical examination of the urinary calculi in the Museum of the Medical Department of Transylvania University : with remarks on the relative frequency of calculus in Lexington, Ky., and the probable causes / by Robert Peter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    formed in this city by Dr. Dudley, during the last thirty years : he having attached little importance to the possession and pre- servation of the calculi, and having, generally, gratified the very natural wish of his patients, to carry off with them the cause of their sufferings. Mode of Examination.—The detail of the processes, used in the chemical examination of any substance, should always accompany the results of the analysis; as it affords one indispensable means of judging of the extent and accuracy of the investigation. The history of the chemical analyses of urinary concretions will sufficiently illustrate this fact; particularly, in relation to the existence of the Urate of Ammonia as an ingredient of these bodies. The processes, used by some analysts, who have doubted its presence, having been insufficient for the accurate detection and estimation of the ammonia, and having, consequently,led them to consider the urate of ammonia, when present, as merely Uric acid. It has long been known that the examination of the external sur- face of a calculus, even when a portion of it is removed, can give but a very imperfect knowledge of its nature and composi- tion. It often happens that the interior is formed of a very different material from the cortex; the later being, in a great ma- jority of cases, composed of earthy phosphates. In most of the specimens in the present collection, the exterior presented but little variety; while the exposure of the interior, by the opera- tion of sawing, often disclosed the most interesting and varied alternations of deposits. Very frequently, the hard and dark colored mulberry calculus, with its rough and spinous surface, was found concealed under a white and comparatively soft deposile of mixed phosphates, which, filling up its deep entering angles, gave regularity to the exterior outline; and formed a general coating, a superficial fracture of which showed the dark points of the projecting processes of the interior body. More- over, the most important portion of the calculus, in regard to its causes and production, is its nucleus; or the first formed solid concretion, produced most frequently in the kidnids, around which (~c j the Uric acid^r the earthy salts,—which are held in solution in the urine by a very weak affinity,—are easily, and often rapidly deposited, by cohesive attraction, or a rude species of crystalli^ zation. The fact that Dr. Marcet did not divide the calculi which