The average specific gravity of healthy urine is between 1, 015 and 1,925, being in excess of water, which is the standard (1,000), and the normal quantity in adults about forty or fifty ounces in the twenty-four hours. A urinometer indicates the specific gravity.
In disease, the urine presents many varieties, and furnishes valuable indications to the pathologist. Thus it may be of a dark yellow or saffron colour, as in Jaundice, or disease of the liver; it may be red or high-coloured, and scanty, with quickened pulse, as in fever; it may be bloody or slimy, as in affections, of the kidneys or bladder; it may be pale and copious when metabolism is checked, less urea excreted, and the unrenewed blood furnishes no colouring matter, as in nervous and hysterical ailments; it may bone heavy, muddy, showing an unfavourable condition of the system. The urine may be passed too copiously or scantily, with pain, with effort, or it may be retained with difficulty. There may be a frequent or uncontrollable desire to micturate, with burning or scalding pain; or the pain may be only experienced in passing the last few drops; in either case local inflammation is indicated.
The specific gravity of urine in Bright’s disease is 1,015 to 1,004; diabetic urine, 1, 025 to 1,040; in Hysteria it may be as low as 1,007.
In Rheumatic fever, in Gout, etc., the urine is abnormally acid; while, on the contrary, when the bladder is inflamed (cystitis) the urine will contain much mucus, and is frequently alkaline. Heat will produce a deposit in acid urine if albumen is present, but not so in alkaline, however large a proportion of albumen it may contain. If urine is kept some time before being examined, if often becomes alkaline and therefore before testing for albumen any natural or artificial alkalinity must be removed by the addition of a suitable quantity of acetic acid. On the other hand, an excess of strong acid added may in its turn interfere with the albumen test. The acidity should be definite, but not excessive. The microscope enables us to detect casts of tubes, etc., but it should be remembered that many substances may have found their way into the vessel, as fibres of deal, flannel, or cotton, etc., which bear a sufficient resemblance to be mistaken for the above.
When urine has to be examine, a little should be taken from the whole quantity that has been passed during twenty-four hours, as it varies greatly in its properties at different periods of the day, and after food.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."