The ammoniacal decomposition of urine / by Wm. Robert Smith.

  • Smith, William Robert, 1850-1932.
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ammoniacal decomposition of urine / by Wm. Robert Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ferment, and later on Boerhaave, in a work published in London in 1732, makes direct mention of the presence of ammonia in urine as the result of decomposition. The source of the ammonia was, however, first clearly under- stood in 1799, when Cruickshank, Fourcroy, and Vauquelin discovered urea, the two latter observers showing that carbonate of ammonia was the principal product of its distillation, and they further pointed out the relationship between the conver- sion of urea in solution in water into carbonate of ammonia by heat, and the spontaneous fermentative decomposition of urine. With a more accurate knowledge of the composition of urea the reason of its conversion into carbonate of ammonia became clearer, but the discovery of Proust that freshly voided urine could be kept for years in a well-stoppered flask without undergoing any change first led him to conclude that the action of air, especially of its oxygen, was necessary for its decompo- sition. Later authorities attributed the decomposition to the presence of a ferment, taking its origin in the putrid destruction of the mucus. Our ideas on the subject were, however, thoroughly changed by the work of Pasteur in 1860. He introduced fresh urine into a glass flask, boiled it for a few minutes, and then effectu- ally closed the flask by fusing its neck. He then found that urine thus treated remained fresh for an indefinite period. If, after the lapse of five or six weeks, he introduced into such urine pieces of asbestos which had been freely exposed to the air, decomposition speedily occurred, giving rise to the am- moniacal smell and the development of numerous organisms, monads, vibriones, bacteria, &c. If, however, the asbestos, previous to its introduction, had been well heated in a blow- pipe flame, no change whatever took place in the urine. It was thus clearly shown that the ammoniacal change in urine was directly owing to the introduction of germs from the air, and subsequently Pasteur and Van Tieghem^ showed that in every fermenting ammoniacal urine the presence of micro-organisms 1 Reclierches sur la fermeutation de I'uree, etc., ' Comptes rendus,' T. Iviii, p. 210-264, 1864.