Pharmacists are proverbially neat-handed, as Mr. Martindale would say, and their habit of conducting dispensing operations which involve the dexterous manipulation of very small quantities of material fit them admirably to undertake volumetric and other rapid analytical determinations.  Compared with the doctor there is no doubt that in this matter the chemist is facile princeps, and from the nature of their respective occupations such could only have been expected.  A few chemists throughout the country lay themselves out to save their local doctors from unwelcome test tube practice, and these almost to a man find it pay.  Some charge a handsome fee to patients, and a small one when the analysis comes through the physician.  Others find it to their interest to furnish medical men with qualitative reports on sugar or albumen gratuitously.  Although this practice has certain obvious drawbacks, if a doctor sends his prescriptions to a chemist, the latter is often willing to gratuitously perform his chemical work.  In the present article we propose to describe briefly but fully the methods which have been found of most value in practice.

PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS.

It is the practice of some physicians to direct the patient to preserve all the urine passed in twenty-four hours, and to forward this in one bottle for analysis.  Others, again, merely send a small sample of “morning” and “evening” urine in separate phials, desiring only a comparative report.  In the former case the volume should be accurately measured, and the quantity noted either in fluid ounces or cubic centimeters before commencing the analysis.  This need not be done if small samples only are received.  The color should be noted.  It varies greatly, through every shade of yellow and amber to dark brown, with a tinge of green or red, if the coloring matter of bile or blood is present.  Also note relative transparency or cloudiness, specific gravity, and reaction, as all these observations are useful in diagnosis. Odor is not quite so important.  The specific gravity should be taken at about 60 deg.  F. in an ordinary specific gravity bottle, or more conveniently by means of a good urinometer.  In the latter case it is very important to have an instrument of known accuracy, many of those in the market being valueless.  Urinometers of glass, though fragile, are decidedly more cleanly and less liable to get out of order than the gilded brass instruments carried in the pocket by many physicians.  Mr. J.J.  Hicks, of 8 Hatton Garden, E.C., manufactures a very creditable “patent urinometer” at an extremely low cost.  Healthy urine has a density of from 1.015 to 1.025; but variations from this range are common.

[Illustration]