The renewal of life : clinical lectures illustrative of a restorative system of medicine, given at St. Mary's Hospital / by Thomas K. Chambers.

  • Chambers, Thomas King, 1818-1889.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The renewal of life : clinical lectures illustrative of a restorative system of medicine, given at St. Mary's Hospital / by Thomas K. Chambers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    62/436 (page 50)
    suddenly, as in the instance I gave you of a Fever cut short by an emetic; but in general the alteration is more gradual. I have mentioned the large amount of urea in proportion to the nutrition contained in the urine of Continued Fever, which is rendered evident by its high specific gravity. There is also an increase very evident to the naked eye in another constituent of some im- portance, the coloured organic material, which gives the secretion its ordinary hue. You saw how dark this boy’s water was, and how deeply it stained the vessel from which I poured it on a piece of white linen. There is great reason to suppose there is a close alliance between this substance and whatever gives the red tint to the blood-discs, and that its excess depends on excessive destruction of those important little living particles. The sulphuric acid and phosphoric acid, combined with bases, which form a necessary part of urine, do not, in Continued Fever, follow the lead of the urea; their amount is less than in health. Whether this is due to the destructive metamorphosis taking less effect on the chief tissues containing sulphur and phosphorus, than it does on the blood and muscles, is uncertain. Dr. Parkes suggests that perhaps a third of the normal sulphates and phosphates of the urine are derived directly from the food, and not from the metamor- phosis of tissue ; and therefore that their diminution in Continued (or Typh) Fever may be owing to the starvation, while the amount which still remains repre- sents a fair proportion of destruction.* The chlorine, in the shape of chloride of sodium, is also in small quantity, but not so deficient as to lead us to suppose that the metamorphosis of the clilori- * Parkes ‘On the Urine,’ B. ii, chap, iii, sect. 4.