it half as much liquor potassa, put it into a test-tube and boil it over the spirit-lamp, and if sugar (diabetes) is in it, the resultant tint will be brownish. But to make assurance doubly sure, half-fill another test-tube with the urine, and add two drops of a solution of sulphate of copper, blue vitriol; this will just shade the liquid; then add one-third as much liquor of potassa as there is of the urine, and boil it as in the previous experiment. If sugar be present a yellow or reddish-brown precipitate will be found settling at the bottom; but if there be a black precipitate there is no diabetes.
Now, there is among Americans a great deal too much nervous action and emotional excitement, from which very frequently results a terrible malady known as "Bright's disease of the kidneys," and pitiable indeed are the victims of it. To determine the presence of that complaint you must test for albumen in the urine, which is simply done by merely boiling it in the test-tube, and if albumenuria exists it will assume either a delicate opalescent hue, caused by the minute flocculi of boiled-egg-like sub- stance, or it will appear in larger curdy flakes, and sometimes will even almost solidify into compact gelatine. But it often happens that an excess of earthy phosphates will produce a white precipitate, even when there is not the slightest trace of albumen. To test the matter keep on boiling; if the white precipitate still abounds, albumen is present; or take another test-tube of the urine and add five drops of dilute nitric acid, and if the patient has Bright's disease the urine will assume a permanent milky hue.
We are all chemical laboratories, of a very high and fine order, and a great many things, elements, and combinations come out of us that never went in, but are the results of chemical action within the body. Among others thus produced is a very important element known to chemists as urea, the same that gives to urine its very peculiar and pungent odor, especially when thrown upon a hot iron surface. Now, if this element be in excess within the body, it is productive of very bad consequences, for it is certain to produce morbid states of mind, unusual drowsiness, inability to control one's self, and a long and distressing catalogue of ills besides. The element is essential to health when normal in quantity. To detect its excess, place a few drops of urine on a tumbler bottom, and add an equal number of drops of pure nitric acid, and if
