The other day, while ammoniacal liquor of about 9 oz. strength was being run at the rate of 70 gallons per hour through the still, 5 feet in diameter and 10 feet high, containing seventeen trays, no smell of sulphureted hydrogen was perceptible from the waste gases from the saturator, although on applying lead paper a slight trace of this impurity was noticeable, and it may be stated that the gases were being delivered at the ground level, where there was no difficulty in testing them.

In the Glasgow apparatus we have found it advisable to enlarge the pipe leading the gases into the saturator, as the volume of these is much greater than would be the case in the ordinary method of working.  Further experience will probably indicate the desirability of increasing the height of the still, which, being only 10 feet, is not more than half the height that Coffey stills are ordinarily made.

* * * * *

THE ANALYSIS OF URINE.

INTRODUCTION.

Whatever may be the position of British pharmacists in comparison with those of other countries, it cannot be said that they have paid the attention to the analysis of urine which the subject has received from pharmacists on the Continent.  Considering the importance of the subject, this curious neglect can only be attributed to the fact that the pharmacist in Great Britain is but slowly attaining the position of chemical expert to the physician, which his foreign confrere has so long held with credit and even distinction.  In France, for example, M. Mehu, whose name is familiar to readers of this journal, is looked upon as one of the leading authorities on morbid urine and its analysis, and yet a list of goodly pharmaceutical papers shows that, as the medical analyst, he has not forgotten his connection with pure pharmacy.

There are several points about urinary analysis which entitle it to a very high position in the estimation of pharmacists.  In the first place, the physician is no more likely to be fonder of the test tube than of the pestle, of analyzing urine than of compounding his own medicines.  Leading men in the profession are more and more setting their faces against the dispensing doctor, and there are numbers among them who admit that they succeed no better as analysts than they do as dispensers.

Some old fashioned practitioners trouble themselves very little about their patients’ urine, except, perhaps, in respect of sugar and albumen.  On the other hand, numbers of leading physicians, including especially those highly educated gentlemen who cultivate a consulting practice, are in the habit of pushing urinary analysis almost to an excess.  One well-known specialist of the writer’s acquaintance, with an extensive West End practice, makes quantitative determinations of urea, uric acid, and total acidity, in addition to conducting other diagnostic experiments, on every occasion that he interviews his patients.  By this means he has accumulated in his case books a mass of data which he considers most valuable as an aid to diagnosis, and through that to successful treatment.