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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    could be abundantly demonstrated, and to the presence of these the destruction of the urea was to be traced. The importance of these experiments was at once manifest, not only as giving a clearer explanation of the changes in urine, but also as indicative of the cause in fermentation gene- rally, and in the present day we all recognise the importance of Pasteur's work as being the foundation of our methods of inquiry into the causes of infectious diseases. Two questions now naturally present themselves for con- sideration : 1. Whether these organisms, which cause the alkaline fer- mentation, always gain admission from without, or whether freshly voided urine contains such germs, so that unboiled urine, carefully protected from contact with the air, may still de- compose ; which would admit of the conclusion that the elements of fermentation do not always arise from without? 2. What particular organism causes the alkaline fermenta- tion, or are several kinds involved ? (1) As regards the entrance of the organism. It has been shown by Cazeneuve^ and Livon, and Meissner^ that perfectly fresh urine may be preserved free from any fermentative change by eliminating the possibility of the entrance of air and germs, and Professor Leube, by a series of ingenious experiments, has shown that normal urine, on its exit from the bladder, contains neither fungi nor germs, the development of which would cause decomposition of the urea. Further, by the exposure for a few minutes of nutrient gelatine in shallow glass vessels such as those used in plate cultivations, micro-organisms may be culti- vated from the air, which, when isolated, are found to be capable of giving rise to the decomposition of sterilised urine, and which, in form and general characters, are found to be identical with the organisms present in decomposed urine. (2) Is the ammoniacal change in urine due to the presence of one or more organisms? It is with the object particularly of dealing with this question that I have lately carried on an in- > ' Comptes rendus,' T. Ixxxiv, p. 571, 1877. ' ' Deutsche Zeitschrift fvir Chirurgie,' Bd. xiii, p. 34:4, 1880. VOL. XXVIl, FART 3. NKW SER. D D