A General System of Chemical Knowledge, by Antoine Francois de compte Fourcroy,

(1755-1809) English translation, London, 1804, from Readex Microprint (Landmarks II

Series) at UCSF. From the volume on Urine.

This transcription was made under somewhat harried circumstances. I had to travel to
San Francisco, as the library would not make an interlibrary loan. It was on a microfiche
that could not be printed out, so I had to dictate it into a tape recorder, in the library, in a
low voice. This is a large volume, and I had to use my discretion in choosing which parts
to skip over. Hopefully no valuable clue to the Work has been omitted. Sometimes I
could not understand my own words when I typed it out, and those words are shown
followed by [?]. Occasionally following an arcane word, I have provided a definition of
it in brackets. Everything that is typed here is verbatim. Ellipses or sections skipped are
shown by..

Here are the essential points I learned from Foucroy:

There is no oil or oily principle per se, in urine, but the essential component of urine,
for which he coined the word Ure, may appear to be so. (76)
The Ure can be extracted from urine by (a) evaporating off the water component, and
then (b) separating it from the remaining mass by alcohol, which leaves the
salts behind. This reminds me of Helmonds statement in Alchemy Unveiled
(preparation of the Azoth, p 70.):
In order to transform the common World-Spirit or Mercury
into a fiery, penetrating and dissolving Spiritus, we must first
separate him from his external phlegmatic acqueousness, namely to
separate everything that is superfluous and foreign. [step (a)]
Then he must also be separated from his internal impurities.
In order to lead him back to his prime Nature or being, into the upper
heavenly Light-Water, all connections through which he is bound to
the Earth [i.e., the salts, step (b)] must be severed.
the Ure, when it is prepared, is very deliquescent, and crystallizes into laminae of
a brilliant yellowish white color. (85). Fulcanelli speaks of a flaky crust like
substance, a bed or book of leaves, of dragons teeth
It stinks like putrefied fish and can be unbearable. (87)
The Ure is like a venom, a poison (86), it is a potent substance which can attack and
break down life, like a dissolvent. Urbigerus says in XX that .this furious Serpent
[comes over as a]Metallic argentine Water, insensibly and invisibly devouring
everything that comes near it
When the crystalline Ure is thrown into Ure that has been liquefied by the addition
of water, it melts in it. (89) Perhaps like ice in water, a phrase about how Our Gold
dissolves in the solvent.
When the Ure is dissolved in 4-5 parts of water, it gives off white fumes when
agitated. (89)
I find the fact that the essence of the urine can be extracted out of it by alcohol to be a
process achievable by the ancients, and philosophically in keeping with the extraction of
middle substances in plants; alchemically, such substances which bridge the gap between
Earth and Heaven, and allow them to conjoin, are called oils or acids, though a chemist
might be confused by the use of such terms. We understand this from the work of
Urbigerus.

Fourcroy begins by making a distinction between the kinds of urine which the body
produces:

*that which follows drink

*that which follows food
*that of the morning

Urine of the first two types can pick up the smells of the food or drink or even substances
which are rubbed upon the skin. For this reason it is believed that these substances pass
through the skin into the urine, and as such, this is not true urine. True urine is that of the
morning when you awake, and is considered to be a combination of all the urines, of the
chyle, i.e. digestion, and of the blood.

Here begins the transcription:

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XIII

Though we may to a certain point admit the same variation of all the same physical
properties of this liquid, we find however more constancy and stability in most of them.
One of the most marked and certain characteristics of the urine is its color. No animal
liquid presents a similar one and it is exclusively given to it by nature. This color which
varies in its intensity from a lemon yellow to a deep orange, is owing to a certain matter,
the relative proportion of which to the water, produces all the possible tinges that are
known. Bellini, who occupied himself much with urine in a medicinal point of view,
understood this fact respecting its coloration; he asserted that the urine's differ in their
most dissimilar colors from the palest to the most intense, only from the relative quantity
of water: so that according to the observations of Boerhaave, which is only a consequence
inferenced from the opinion of Bellini, we can produce from the most intensely colored
urine all of the intermediate tinges to the very palest, and thus imitate the processes of
nature, nothing more being required than to add different quantities of water.

It must however be remarked that the lemon or slightly orange color joined with a perfect
transparency and limpidity, which announce the liquidity very homogeneous in all its
parts. I do not here speak of the varied colors which the urine affects under various
pathological circumstances, of the red and inflammatory urine, of the saffron colored
urine , of the black urine of melancholic affections, of the green urine of patients laboring
under jaundice, of the blue urine observed in some cases of stranguary. These different
colors indicate deviations from the healthy state.

XIV

The smell of the urine is also a property which belongs implicitly to it, and has not yet
sufficiently engaged the attention of physiologists. Immediately after it has been
discharged, the urine, while still hot, has a smell which is truly aromatic, has nothing
fetid, or ammoniacal, or acid, and resembles nothing else, but is so well characterized that
no other natural substance can be confounded with it: that which approaches the nearest
to it is the odor of the violet; but the smell of the urine is stronger, more pungent and
more exalted; it is never alkaline, ammoniacal, unless when the urine has suffered a
commencement of alteration; accordingly, when ammonia is characterized by expression
of a urinous smell, this ought to be understood only of urine already putrefied. It is very
remarkable that the smell which most resembles that of fresh, healthy, and warm urine, is
the aroma of the transpiration, which is discharged in the fluid state by healthy persons;
we find it also in the perspiration of the horse when undergoing violent exercise. We shall
hereafter see that this depends upon the preference of a matter peculiar to the urine, and
which is sometimes, perhaps even always, but only in small quantity, in the humor of the
transpiration and moisture of the skin.

The urine, when discharged from the bladder, has a temperature equal to that of the
internal parts of the body.

ANALYSIS OF THE URINE

32. When fresh urine is heated in an open vessel by an mild heat and without making it
boil, water is disengaged with a urinous but not fetid odor; the odor of the liquid becomes
more intense and changes to a bright red; it soon becomes turbid and deposits whitish or
slightly colored powder, with some coagulated flakes similar to the albumen. The smell
which was first aromatic, soon changes to an ammoniacal odor, although the liquid be not
heated to ebullition; this ammoniacal smell has at the same time something acrid and
pungent. The urine, which in its natural state always reddens turnsole [an herb of the
spurge family whose juice is turned blue by ammonia--Websters], no longer reddens it at
this period, but on the contrary it turns paper blue that has been reddened by an acid, a
proof that it then contains an excess of ammonia, which is formed in it by the action of
the fire. In the progress of this operation, by which we may reduce it to different degrees
of consistence, and even to dryness, the urine passes from a red to a brown color, and if,
when it is of the consistence of a thin syrup, we place it in a cool and quiet situation; a
large quantity of brown (???) crystals are formed, which have been called, fusible or
microcosmic salt, native salt of urine.
The liquid liquor, being decanted off it is evaporated again on a stove, or by placing it in
warm and dry weather, in flat vessels, and thus are obtained several times successive
products of crystals, which, being purified by alcohol, dissolved in slightly heated water,
and afterwards put to crystallize, separate into muriate of soda, ammoniacal phosphate
and phosphate of soda. The last motherwater, which is highly colored, very deliquescent
and very thick, contains a particular matter of which I shall soon speak.

33. Thus by a well conducted evaporation, we separate from the human urine a small
quantity of coagulated albumen, a pulverulent [crumbly, powdery] precipitate formed of
phosphate of lime and uric acid, muriate and phosphate of soda, phosphate of ammonia,
and a particular substance which remains in the last motherwater, and assumes a
pulverulent form when the evaporation is carried down to dryness. This has been
erroneously considered as a saponaceous extract, and possesses very remarkable
properties. At the same time that the separation takes place, ammonia and carbonate of
ammonia are formed in the urine; it ceases to be acid; it exhales an offensive smell; it
becomes brown, thick, and sensibly changed in its nature.
When this evaporation is performed in a gentle manner we may separate the pulverulent
precipitate upon cloth of a close texture, placed at the bottom of the vessel and taken up
from time to time; we may also obtain separately the muriate of soda, crystals of which
are formed at the surface of the liquor and may be easily skimmed of. Rouelle, employed
this method to obtain the crystals of fusible salt more pure and less mixed with common
salt.

34. As the principal purpose of this evaporation of urine was to obtain of its native salt, I
shall give the principal observations of Rouelle the younger upon this subject. This
chemist evaporated putrefied urine to the consistence of a thin syrup; which he passed
quite hot through a double cloth, to retain what he called the selenite of the urine, namely
the phosphate of lime and the uric acid mixed with marine salt, which he washed with a
little hot water. To the evaporated urine, either immediately or after the first formation of
crystals of fusible salt, he added carbonate of ammonia, in order to saturate the
phosphoric acid which was insulated by the heat, and produced a brisk efflorescence. In
the case of strong putrefaction, Rouelle had observed that the muriate of soda crystallized
first according to him, because the fusible salt then had a greater hold of the volatile
alkalai. However, he afterward announced in the last formation of the crystals of alkaline
phosphate or fusible salt, there is a proportion of marine salt which crystallizes
abundantly and renders the salt very impure. He preferred to the evaporation by fire, that
produced by the air, in fine weather. In the latter, according to him, the muriate of soda
separates better from the phosphate. He followed the same process in order to obtain the
last portions of salt from the mother waters; three or four years of spontaneous
evaporation were scarcely sufficient to exhaust them of this salt. He also evaporated the
urine to a consistence thicker than that of syrup; he then placed it upon a cloth, washed
the marine salt that was left upon the filter, added this lixivium to the matter which he
also dissolved with water in order to prevent its crystallizing and to render it more liquid
than a syrup; he added carbonate of ammonia to it, then evaporated it again by fire, and
by afterwards exposing it to the air he obtained an abundance of fusible salt.
He also recommended the precaution not to subject this concentrated liquor to
spontaneous evaporation except in fine weather, but to keep it in the winter in well closed
vessels, in order to prevent its absorbing humidity.
35. The purification of the native or fusible salt, formed of the phosphates of ammonia
and of soda and muriate of soda, was also formerly one of the principal operations that
were performed upon urine. I shall mention to the reader the observations of the last
mentioned chemist, Rouelle in 1776, which contain what is of the most importance and
greatest utility to be known respecting the subject. This able chemist, considering like all
the authors who had preceded him the phosphate of ammonia as the true fusible salt,
because he knew that this alone affords phosphorus in its distillation with charcoal,
begins with observing that this salt, when extracted from the urine with the foregoing
processes, is very impure and mixed with a saponaceous brown matter which he called
soapy, with muriate of soda, and with another salt affording voluminous and efflorescent
crystals: this was the phosphate of soda, which before him had been taken for sulfate of
soda. By dissolving this impure fusible salt, composed as we see, of four different
substances, in 5 or 6 parts of slightly heated water, and after filtration through paper, by
evaporating the solution, there is first disengaged ammonia and entire fusible salt, which
attaches itself in white points and in a crust to any part of the basin, and even upon the
furnace which contains it. Rouelle attributes to the water and to the ammonia, this
elevation of phosphate of ammonia, which he asserts, is deprived of its volatile alkali,
because according to him it produces an effervescence, with the liquor which contains an
excess of it, and with a solution of carbonate of ammonia when applied to it with a straw.
The liquor must not be evaporated to formation of a pellicle; it afterwards affords by
cooling, and especially by spontaneous evaporation in the air, the phosphate of ammonia
which crystallizes first, above this larger crystals of phosphate of soda place themselves,
which are distinguished by their volume, their form of compressed tetrahedrons, their
efflorescence, and the opaque glass which they afford in the fire. Rouelle recommends to
add ammonia to the evaporated liquor or while it is evaporating or to saturate it [with]
this alkali, and even to add an excess of it, in order that there may be no reason to fear the
viscid consistence which the insulated phosphoric acid gives, and opposes the
crystallization of salt.

36. All that has been said of the evaporation of urine by fire, belongs almost exclusively
to the means and processes proper for extracting of the salts. I shall now consider the
operation under a new point of view, as we adapted to lead to other results respecting the
analysis of the urine. Citizen Vanquelin and myself in our inquiries respecting this liquor
have found that when it was evaporated by a mild heat to an acquired consistence of a
very thick syrup, the whole concreted into a crystalline lamelated [composed of thin
plates of lamellae] or granulated mass, of a dark brown color and a very pungent smell
and taste; this mass did not resemble honey or caramel as Rouelle has asserted. Excepting
the proportion of carbonate of ammonia disengaged with water during the process of
evaporation (for we convinced ourselves by performing this evaporation on the water bath
in closed vessels, that such a product was volatized). This crystalline mass exhibited to
us all the materials of the urine in a concentrated form; we therefore sought the means of
analyzing this extract of urine and separating its different constituent materials. We
employed alcohol for this kind of analysis; it dissolved almost all of the urinary matter
with the aid of a mild heat; there remained undissolved only a small quantity of a gray
crystalline granulated dirty powder, which cold water almost totally dissolved: the portion
not dissolved by the water was phosphate of lime and uric acid; a lixivium of potash
separated the latter from its earthy salt. The water held in solution, muriates of potash and
soda, phosphates of ammonia and of soda.

The whole of these saline matters that had escaped the action of the alcohol accounted to
only some thousandth of the original weight of the urine: while the substances dissolved
in the alcohol amounted to several hundredths of the liquor and was much superior in
quantity to all the saline matters taken together.
This substance already announced in the motherwater of the urine that had furnished the
fusible salt is therefore the most abundant of the most important material; it is this which
gives its principal characters account [?] and will be particularly examined in one of the
paragraphs of this article.

We have therefore a method of analysis which may serve to separate the different
materials of the urine and even to determine their proportions. It resembles that which is
practiced upon mineral waters; it requires only a well conducted evaporation, a speedy
refrigeration, and a successive treatment of the whole crystalline mass which it affords by
alcohol, of the undissolved portion of water and by the ley [sic] of caustic [sic] alkali, as
well as the graduated evaporations of the alcoholic and of the aqueous solutions.
Indeed, the first of these solutions does not contain the coloring, odorous, and urinous
matters simply, but always combined with muriate of ammonia, muriate of soda and
benzoic acid in small quantities; but we find again these last mentioned bodies, and can
even determine their proportions pretty accurately by other means of analysis which I
shall point out.

I have observed that by evaporating the urine in closed vessels and by the heat of the
water bath, we might likewise obtain a [?] thick and crystallizable consistence. I must
add that the first water which passes has but little smell; that [?] portion of the urine
becomes colored, thickened, condensed, and loses its water, it undergoes an alteration in
its constituent matter which converts part of it into carbonate of ammonia, it is on this
account that the last water obtained is charged with carbonate of ammonia and produces a
lively effervescence with all the acids. The quantity of water which may be obtained
from the distillation of the urine in the water bath: carried so far as to reduce it to the dry
state and to the consistence of a solid extract, varies a little according to the species of
urine, though it is always very considerable.

38. The distillation of the urine inspissated [thickened] into an extract, or of the sapa [sic]
of the urine by the retort, has much occupied chemists; it was almost the only operation
with which they had formerly performed upon this liquid. It furnished very important
products, then in high estimation, and in great vogue as medicines. When the extract of
urine is distilled in a retort of stoneware by a graduated fire, a turbid water is obtained,
very fetid and charged with ammonia which was formerly called spirit of urine.
Boerhaave has said that when the urine was putrefied, the spirit passed before water.
Various chemists have estimated the proportion of this product between 1/40th and
1/20th of the urine. It is soon succeeded by solider crystallized carbonate of ammonia,
which was formerly designated by the name of volatile salt. It has long since been
remarked that the urine is the animal matter which affords the most of this salt. Its
proportion varies between 1/10th and 1/??? of the weight of the urine according to the
different authors who have spoken of it. It is frequently soiled by little oil. It may be
rectified by sublimation with a very gentle heat.

There passes at this same time, and especially after this salt, a yellow, red, and black oil,
concrete at last, of strongly fetid smell; its proportion has been found between 1/64th
1/400th of the weight of the urine according to the experiments of Langrish. It may be
rendered very liquid and very clear by rectification. A small quantity of phosphorus is
also obtained by the last action of the fire upon the extract of urine.

There is also disengaged during this distillation a small portion of elastic fluid, composed
of carbonic acid gas and carbonated hydrogen gas......

After the separation of all the volatile products there remains a coal estimated 1/40th to
1/60th of the weight of the urine, by Langrish, which contains marine salt without fixed
alkali, according to van Helmont, Boerhaave, and the last mentioned author.

Urine left to itself in a glass vessel at first loses its smell as it cools. That which is highly
colored and sparing, which is voided after violent exercise or when the atmosphere is
very hot, becomes turbid through its whole extent and deposits gray colored powder. This
liquid at first presents a light cloud which occupies the upper part of it; this cloud
gradually augmenting in quantity subsides and becomes a sediment; different kinds of
crystals are formed within 24 to 48 hours; there separates at its surface and upon the
bottom of the vessel which contains it, small red crystals with brilliant facets: this sand of
urine is uric acid; the urine preserves its acidity as long as these crystals are deposited
from it. In some days its color becomes less intense, its acid nature disappears, it becomes
ammoniacal and exhales that smell, and no more uric acid is then deposited. There is
formed at its surface a white light and as it were glary [sic] pellicle, in which some white
prismatic crystals are perceived; the same salt attaches itself everywhere to the white or
colored cloud which swims under the pellicle; these crystals increase in number or
volume during six or eight days. These are six-sided prisms terminated by pyramids with
six faces; some are tetrahedral with pyramids of four faces. We have found them to be
ammoniacal-magnesium phosphate. This salt does not exist in the fresh urine; it is
deposited only in the period when the urine has become ammoniacal. Then by filtrating
the urine at the time when the salt no longer increases in quantity, we find it to be charged
with carbonate of ammonia, turning the syrup a violet green, effervescing with the acids,
and affording with the sulfuric and muriatic acids, after it has been evaporated to the
consistence of a syrup, a very marked acetous odor, and containing little or none of the
crystallizable and colored matter which has been indicated above and is extracted from
the pure urine by strong evaporation and refrigeration.

40. Thus the spontaneous alteration of the urine produces several important phenomena.
The uric acid is first deposited in red crystals by mere cooling; the ammonia which is
formed soon interrupts its separation; these are succeeded by a white cloud, formed of
phosphate of lime and an albumenous substance, matters which are no longer soluble in
the urine after the phosphoric acid, which at first was free, becomes saturated by the first
portion of ammonia that is formed; the uric acid passes into the state of ammoniacal
urate and forms part of the cloud; the proportion of the phosphate of ammonia and that of
the ammonia both augmenting, and especially the latter, this unites with the phosphate of
magnesia, and gives rise to the ammoniacal-magnesian phosphate, which crystallizes.
The matter peculiar to the urine, which was converted so abundantly into ammonia, forms
at the same time carbonic acid, which saturates the portion of ammonia exceeding the
saturation of the uric acid and phosphoric acids; and this is the reason why the liquor
contains ammoniacal carbonate, effervesces with the acids, and even gives this salt
crystallized by the action of a mild fire. At the same time acetous acid is developed,
which the ammonia also saturates; so that we may obtain ammoniacal acetate by the
distillation of the urine thus decomposed. The common source of these three new
compounds, ammonia, carbonic acid, and acetous acid, is in the particular manner of the
urine, which has already been several times indicated, and which is eminently susceptible
of fermentation; accordingly the urine when once decomposed contains only alkaline
phosphate, and no longer presents this matter, or at least contains a small quantity of it;
and it is with the same reason that it has formerly been much recommended to let the
urine putrefy in order to extract its fusible or native salts.
These are obtained both more abundantly and more pure when the urine is exposed to the
strong heat of the sun; it keeps a long time without putrefying, becomes concentrated,
colored, and evaporates instead of experiencing the fermentations which quickly
establishes itself in the shade.

41. All the urines however do not constantly and indiscriminately present this kind of
effectual alteration which entirely changes their intimate nature. In the same individual's
urine presents this decomposition, it frequently happens that this liquid, instead of
becoming covered with a saline pellicle, presents at its surface, on the 5th or 6th day after
it has been evacuated, a colored moldiness after the deposition of the crystals of uric acid
and the light white cloud. This mold which is gray and green, increases during about 20
days; no white prismatic crystals are seen except below the pellicle covered by the
mucous, and they are few. This liquor instead of being surcharged with carbonate of
ammonia has no ammoniacal smell; on the contrary an acetous emanation is disengaged
from it by the muriatic acid; and when it is concentrated by the evaporation, we again find
in it the peculiar matter above indicated and in still greater abundance.
Citizen Halle has well described this state of the urine which is frequent [?], and which in
the state of health, nearly equals in the number of days in which it is met with, that the
days in which the same liquid presents a strong ammoniacal decomposition.

We have found that these urines which are less alterable unless decomposable, contain
less albuminous substance than the preceding; whence we have concluded that the speedy
alkalescence depends upon the presence of this albumen which is actually exhibited in
them by means of tannin; for a solution precipitates the highly putrefiable urines much
more abundantly than those which are less [?] highly so. Thus we have two kinds of
urine which each individual appears to void alternately or in different circumstances
which have not yet been ascertained. ....

42. The acids have no action on fresh urine; the oxalic only forms in it a precipitate of
oxalic of lime, by decomposing the calcareous phosphate which it constantly contains;
this is a means of determining the proportion of lime, and consequently the calcareous
phosphate, which it holds in solution. All of the acids produce effervescence with
putrefied urine, on account of the carbonate of ammonia which it then contains in
abundance. In urine, pretty strongly concentrated, muriatic acid sometimes forms a
precipitate of benzoic acid, and the nitric acid, a little concentrated, suddenly produces in
it white crystals, of a pearly brilliancy, in great abundance, by uniting with the urinary
matter which I have several time announced, and of which I shall soon treat in particular.
When the urine is much putrefied, nitric acid does not produce these crystals; the
oxygenated muriatic acid discolors and whitens the urine. Most of the acids, especially
the sulfuric, which when it is poured, concentrated upon the freshest urine, turns it brown,
and it carbonates, gives a rose or red color to all the ammoniacal products that are
extracted from this liquid by distillation.

43. Almost all of the earthy and alkaline matters exert a more or less decomposing action
upon urine. It has long been known that when lime or alkalis are thrown upon it, a fetid
ammoniacal odor develops; which proceeds not only from the decomposition of the
phosphate of ammonia, but also from the action of these bases upon the urinary animal
matter. The solutions of barites, of strontium, and of lime poured into the urine,
immediately form or precipitate in it; the two first separate the phosphate of lime from it,
absorb the phosphoric acid which held it in solution, and precipitate the phosphate of the
barites or of strontium, which unites with the acid. This phosphate proceeds either from
the union of the earths with the free phosphoric acid, or from the combination of the
barites with the acid engaged in the soda, the ammonia and the magnesia; so that the
barites decompose all of the phosphoric salts contained in the urine. The sulfate of barites
are deposited when there is any sulfate of soda in the urine.

Lime, while it affects the same decompositions, precipitates only the phosphate of lime,
either that which already exists formed in the urine, or that which the addition of this
earth determines with the free phosphoric acid, and the magnesia united with the acid,
without touching the other salts. When the fixed alkalis are poured in excess into very
recent urine besides the action already indicated they prevent the uric acid from
depositing itself and retain it in solution. Ammonia does not produce the same effect.
Amongst the salts, only the nitrates and the muriates of barites, of strontium, and of lime,
produce precipitation by decomposing the phosphates. The muriates of soda and of
ammonia, dissolved in cold urine to saturation, and afterwards exposed to spontaneous
evaporation in the sun, crystallize it with very remarkable modification of their form. The
first, instead of the cubic which it ought to have, assumes the octahedral form; and the
second, from the octahedral form, passes into the cubic. We shall soon see the causes of
this singular modification.
Separate Constituents of Urine continued

54. The phosphate of soda, is one of the most important and best known salts of urine;
being confounded for it for a considerable time with the phosphate of ammonia under the
name of microcosmic or fusible salt, it was suspected by Pott and Margraf; was well
separated from the above mentioned salt by Halptschlauffer, Rouelle, etc. It is very
remarkable at first by its property of not affording phosphorus, and of remaining in the
residuum of the distillation by which this combustible body is obtained; it was afterwards
recognized as acting in the urine upon the metallic solutions which were poured into it,
constituting a great part of the precipitate which these solutions form in it and becoming
in this form, susceptible of affording phosphorus with charcoal.

55. The phosphate of ammonia is one of the best known and best proved salts of the
urine; it is that which beyond all the others has been the most examined and has served
with the most advantage to characterize this liquid, since it is from it that phosphorus of
urine was extracted. It is rarely obtained alone, though it tends to crystallize first after the
inspissation, and the refrigeration of the urine [think Adiramled here]
It is always mixed with a certain quantity of the phosphate of soda, and appears even to
form with it a kind of triple salt, which constitutes the base of the native, fusible, or
microcosmic salt. This very distinguishable, when pure and insulated, by its property of
affording ammonia by the action of fire, and of leaving phosphorous acid, which may be
obtained in the form of transparent acid, soluble and deliquescent glass.

58. As to the triple phosphate of soda and ammonia, announced as the tenth of the
principles hitherto discovered and admitted in the urine, I already said in number 55 that
this salt commonly exists in the aggregate or the massive crystals which are obtained by
the refrigeration and the repose of the inspissated urine under names of fusible salt, native
salt of urine, or microcosmic salt. The attentive examination which I made in 1790 of this
entire salt, proved to me that by redissolving and causing it to crystallize several times in
succession, in order to purify it, crystals of this triple salt were obtained, composed of
different proportions of the two primitive salts; so that the first contained much more
phosphate of ammonia, and the last much more phosphate of soda; in so much that at the
end of this purification, the phosphate of soda crystallized alone, as had been observed by
Haupt, Rouelle, and even Margraf and Pott before them. There are therefore several
varities of the triple salt, which cannot be ascertained and examined except by an exact
analysis. There is a greater quantity in putrefied than in fresh urine, on account of the
formation of ammonia, which saturates that portion of phosphoric acid which hold the
phosphate of lime in solution.

59. The triple phosphate of the triple phosphate of magnesia and of ammonia does not
exist in fresh urine, the phosphate of ammonia it contains, which appears to be combined
with the phosphate of soda; whence it seems to follow, that the ammoniacal phosphate
has more attraction for that of soda than for that of magnesia.
60. The free phosphoric acid of urine was really discovered by Scheele, when he
observed that the phosphate of lime was dissolved only by this acid....Several physicians
had long before perceived the natural acidity of the urine. Colonel de Villiars had
especially announced it in his course of surgery, and nevertheless it was a generally
received opinion that the urine was of an alkaline nature. The embarrassment in which
the chemists found themselves in this respect, proves they did not distinguish the
tendency to alkalescence, by which this liquid is characterized, from its truly and
constantly acidulous nature at the moment when it is evacuated out of the human body. It
is to the phosphoric acid, as the strongest and the most powerful of those that are found
dissolved in the urine, that this acidity is to be ascribed; but we not suppose it to be pure
and insulated, since it is engaged in a real combination with the phosphate of lime, which
it renders soluble. It must be conceived on the contrary, that were this acid pure and
without calcareous phosphate, the urine would be much more acid. We have already seen
that this portion of acidity is destroyed by the first formation of ammonia, and that it is
then that the phosphate of lime, ceasing to be soluble after this saturation, is deposited,
and renders the urine turbid in proportion as it abandons it; the urine therefore is an
evacuant of the phosphoric acid in excess.

61. The uric acid is one of the most singular and useful discoveries of Scheele. After
having found it in the calculus, or stone of the bladder, he discovered it in all kinds of
human urine; he observed it to be precipitated by the cooling of this liquid, and if warm
what is known by the name of sand; it is this which produces those crystals of a reddish
or light ruby color, which deposit themselves upon the sides of the vessels in which the
urine is received. It is to it that Scheele attributes the gray or peach blossom colored
precipitation of the critical urine at the termination of diseases. It undoubtedly
contributes to the acidity of this liquid, though its own be but extremely weak.

63. The acetous acid does not naturally exist in fresh urine. Though discovered nearly 50
years ago by Pott amongst the distilled products of this liquid, chemists have not spoken
of it since. Citizen Vanquellin and myself in our long series of experiments upon the
urine have ascertained that it is constantly formed by the fermentation which takes place
in it; that its constituent materials constantly exist in it; that it is the product of its first
alteration; that it accompanies the production of ammonia. We must not conclude from
hence with van Helmont that urine is susceptible of experiencing the vinous fermentation,
or of affording ardent spirit; which was denied with greater justice by Boerhaave, though
as we shall see hereafter, there are some cases in which this property may be found in it.
It is now sufficiently known that the previous fermentation and presence of alcohol are
not always immediately necessary to the production of the acetous acid and that it is
formed in many circumstances which have nothing to do with the alcoholic fermentation.

76. Several chemists have thought to have explained the peculiar nature of the urine by
admitting in it an attenuated oil, the ultimate products of the efforts of life, and the
motion of the organs. Boerhaave has insisted the most upon this idea, which we find very
fully and copiously developed in Haller's grand physiological work. But it is evident that
it was for want of accurate facts and positive experiments upon the nature of the urine
that medical chemists proposed this opinion. That this pretended oil was only a
hypothetical principle such as were very easily adopted at the period when this was
admitted. Moreover, when we inquire to what matter contained in the urine, this acrid,
oily principle, the ultimate product of the vital action, approaches the nearest, we find that
the notion which chemists had conceived of it, at the commencement of the present
century, corresponds, if not accurately, at least by sufficiently marked relations, with the
most abundant urinary substance, which truly constitutes this kind of excremental liquid,
and which I reserve for a particular consideration, on account of its importance, in the
paragraph immediately following. We must not therefore admit oil properly so-called, or
the attenuated oily principle, in the urine; but consider it only as an improper synonym, as
a bad and false denomination given to one of the most important and remarkable
principles of this liquid.

77. No chemist has yet discovered or indicated silex in the urine; but as this earth has
presented itself to us in the analysis of calculus of the bladder,

78. Last of the 30th [components of the urine] and the last principle which is from the
urine, and that which is met in the greatest abundance the presence of which I have
already repeatedly indicated which has been mistaken by confounding it sometimes with
an attenuated oil, sometimes with a coloring matter, and sometimes with a kind of
saponaceous extract; it is this substance which truly characterizes the urine. And is alone
much more considerable than all the other materials of this liquid taken collectively,
without which its urine would not be what it is; the more abundant quality which gives to
this liquid its very marked urinary characters, and the variable proportion with which
produces the most striking differences in the several urines. This matter performs a very
important part not only with respect to the urine, but also with respect to the whole mass
of the body, and as its distinction, its characters, and its properties, have hitherto almost
entirely escaped the observations of chemists, I shall describe it particularly and carefully
under the name of Ure.

79. According to what I have indicated concerning each of the different materials which
have been found in the urine, we may distribute them into four classes; the first
comprehending those which are constantly found in the liquid; the second, those which
are only found at only rarely, accidently, and frequently in consequence of modifying
causes; to the third I shall refer to matters formed by fermentation, and which are
extracted only from the altered urine, and to the fourth I shall place those which are only
conjectural and hypothetical.

Eleven of the 30 principles indicated are constantly exhibited in the analysis of the urine
and truly constituents so that they may be considered as excrements which must be
discharged out of the human body by this way. Such are the Ure, the gelatinous animal
matter, the muriate of soda and of ammonia, the phosphates or soda, and of ammonia,
separate or united in triple salt, the phosphate of lime, the phosphate of magnesia, the
phosphoric acid, the uric acid, and the benzoic acid. Their respective proportions vary
according to the multitude of circumstances; but one that will constitute a urine is always
a solution of these eleven substances in a large quantity of water.

80. Many chemists have spoken of several other matters in the urine, and their assertions
are too deserving of confidence, for us not to admit these matters, but experiments show
they are rare and accidental. In this second class of materials of the urine we must place
muriate of potash, the sulfate of soda, the sulfate of lime, the calcareous oxalate, the
saccharine substance. We see that these matters may exist at the same time with the
twelve preceding that they are not contradictory to their presence, and their attractus [?]
permit them to meet and remain in it with preservation of their nature, and without
changing that of the constant and as it were essential materials of this liquid.

81. When the urine is fermented, besides the matters which it constantly emits, there are
formed with it, at the expense of the Ure and the animal substance the only alterable and
fermentable principles which it contains, the acetous acid, ammonia, and carbonic acid; to
that we then find in it, besides these principles, the following additional ones, the
benzoate, the urate, and the acetite of ammonia, the Ure is no longer either so abundant
or in its natural state; its brown color, and the dark colored depositions which appear in it,
prove that a portion of carbon is separated; accordingly, when once fermented or altered
by the spontaneous movement which is so early and so soon excited in it, the urine is no
longer really the same liquid that it was in its natural and healthy state.

82. Hypothetical principles.........

Section VI
PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF THE URINATE SUBSTANCE OR OF THE
URE

83. I've already indicated a great number of times in the preceding numbers of this article
the peculiar matter about which I am to treat. It is as rich as the urine is colored, smell
part of its taste and in general all the properties which characterize this urinary liquid,
without its presence there would be no real urine; and when the liquid discharge from the
bladder does not contain it in certain circumstances, it has no longer the true
characteristics of urine, but is in some respects a liquid foreign to its proper nature. The
chemists, the physiologists, the physicians have never yet examined this matter under a
familiar point of view; yet it is worthy of all our attention, both in respect to the singular
properties which distinguish it, and to the important relations which it presents with the
phenomenon of the animal economy. Boerhaave, etc, had however a notion of its
existence. Rouelle the younger, had described some of its properties, especially its
crystallization, its deliquescence, its solubility in alcohol, its abundant conversion into
ammonia and he attempted to distinguish it by the name of saponaceous matter.

84. In our long and laborious researches upon the urine, Citizen Vanquellin and myself
have paid particular attention to this substance because we found it to be the cause and
the source of several very remarkable properties presented. It presented itself to us in a
multitude of circumstances and phenomena which has not been sufficiently observed by
the chemists. It has exhibited to us its peculiar nature very different from that of any other
urinary substances constituting and characterizing the urine, so that this liquid seemed to
us not to be capable of existing without it.....we named it the Ure....thus it will no longer
be able to confound it with an extract, a soap, or an oil, the properties of which differ in
many respects from those of this particular matter.

85. It is necessary we should first relate the matter obtaining the Ure as pure as possible
for we have not been able to insulate it entirely from the other materials contained in the
urine. I've already said that the urine evaporated by a mild heat to the consistence of a
thick syrup, is concreted by cooling into a solid brown granulated mass which has been
compared to a sapa or a kind of honey. This mass is a mixture of twelve different
matters, since it is really an entire extract of the urine; but the Ure forms the greater part
of it, and its solubility in alcohol, while most of the other materials of this liquid are not
soluble in it, has assisted us to obtain it most pure. For this purpose we pour upon the
brown granulated mass four times its weight of well rectified alcohol, at several times, in
a vessel placed upon a mild fire; the liquor whilst it dissolves almost the whole of it,
assumes the dark brown color, and leaves the greater part of the saline matters
considerably pure. Rouelle had recommended a similar means for producing the salts of
the urine. The alcoholic solution, placed in a retort of glass, must be distilled on the sand
bath; there passes over a fetid alcohol, charged with carbonate of ammonia, and
effervescing with the acids, which give it a rose color. When the liquor is of the
consistence of thick syrup, it hardly contains any more alcohol; as it cools it crystallizes
into laminae, crossing each other, seemingly quadrangular, cut off or imperfect at their
sides, of a brilliant yellowish white color, and brown in some of their surfaces. This is
the Ure mixed with a small quantity of the muriate of ammonia, as well as benzoic acid,
of which it is impossible entirely to deprive it; but it is sufficiently pure to present the
properties which characterize it.

86. The whole of the Ure prepared in this manner is crystallized; but it has hitherto been
impossible for us to determine, with exactness, all of its micaceous [appearing like mica
in transparent thin leaves] brilliant laminae, always grouped together and pressed against
each other, and always incomplete. Though hitherto incapable of an exacting description,
this form however, presents an appearance which sufficiently distinguishes it from any
other animal substance, or whatever nature it may be, for it to be impossible to confound
it, or not distinguish it with ease. It exhales a strong fetid and alliaceous [garlic or onion
like] smell, which is repulsive to animals, and seems to affect the nerves and brain in a
dangerous manner when exposed to it for some time. It adheres to the vessel which
contains it; it is rather difficult to cut or break it, it is hard, granulated very consistent at
its center, it becomes soft and like honey at the surface; it strongly absorbs the moisture
of the atmosphere, and the portion dissolved by this deliquescence runs in a thick liquid
around the whole mass, which it detaches in part from the sides of the vessel, and which
it turns brown in all the points in which it insinuates itself. Its acrid, pungent, and very
disagreeable taste resembles that of ammoniacal salts.
87. The Ure introduced with caution into a retort with a wide and short beak, to which a
receiver and pneumatical chemical apparatus is adapted, comports itself by the fire and in
a distillation in a manner peculiar to itself. It is quickly fused; at first there is raised a
white fume, which condenses upon the sides of the retort in laminae, which are easily
distinguished to be benzoic acid. Soon the first sublimate is succeeded by crystallized
carbonate, the production of which continues, without interruption, until the end of the
operation. Neither aqueous liquor, nor oil, is obtained, but the sublimed product is turned
brown. The air of the apparatus is impelled into inverted glasses, placed at the extremity,
is impregnated with fetid alliaceous odor, resembling that of putrefied fish. It can lead off
[?] in solution carbonate of ammonia, which is discovered by the precipitate which it
occasions in the well water which is frequently employed for filling the pneumatic
chemical vessel. Its affectious odor becomes horrible, and insupportable, when the heat
is very intense. The matter in the retort is then dry, blackish, and covered with a raised
white crust, which elevates itself at last in a heavy vapor and attaches itself to the lowest
part of the vault of the retort; this is the ammoniacal muriate. We observe nothing more
in this operation carried on for two hours, until the retort is perfectly red hot, and ready to
melt. The coaly residue, when water is poured upon it, exhales a smell of prussic acid;
when burned by an open fire, it exhales also ammonia and a prussic smell of bitter
almonds; it leaves one-hundredth weight of primitive matter of an acrid white cinder,
which turns the syrup violets [?] green and contains a small quantity of carbonate of soda.

89. The Ure is extremely soluble in water, as is proved by its deliquesence. When we
pour a little water upon it, it absorbs it pretty quickly and soon diluted with it, producing a
sensible refrigeration, and assuming a brown color in the thick state. When we throw
crystalline masses of Ure into this liquid, it melts in it, presenting thick brown streaks.
When the solution is sufficiently liquid and clear, which is effected with four or five parts
of water to one of Ure, it exhales when agitated in the air white fumes which fumes
which appear to depend upon the disengagement of ammonia, and becomes sensible by
the odor developed at the same time.

95. Some [?] extracts of alcohol easily dissolve the Ure, less abundantly however, and
less speedily than water does, it dissolves much more easily with the aid of heat, and as
the Ure is precipitated from it by refrigeration in the crystalline form, this is the means
of obtaining it in the regular form which we have successfully practiced. When the
alcoholic solution of Ure is boiled for some time, this matter is slowly decomposed, a
great deal of it passes into the state of carbonate of ammonia, which is disengaged and
rises in vapor with the alcohol as it is volatising. We have here an effect analogous to the
boiling of water and a familiar tendency on the part of the urine to pass into the state of its
accustomed or as it were habitual decomposition.

96. This substance differs from all other matters, it is a very peculiar kind in that it is a
compound in which azote [a-zote, not capable of supporting life; nitrogen]
predominates, which presents itself as the ultimate term of animalization, and may be
considered as an excrement of which nature must discharge itself, and life must be held
far from its focus. The distinct and characteristic properties that lead to this conclusion,
are its strong smell and taste, its disposition to crystallize; its very easy decomposition by
a great number of agents, and always in the same manner; its conversion into the state of
ammonia, of carbonic acid, of acetous and of prussic acid; its extreme tendency to the
putrid alteration, which it undergoes especially when it is mixed with a small quantity of
animal substance extraneous to its proper nature, and even the remarkable influence
which it exerts upon the otherwise constant and even tenacious form of two salts which
are not known to vary except with the utmost difficulty, which is a reference to the fact
that the Ure seems to change the crystalline form of two of the salts of urine if it is
present in the precipitated salts.

Notes:

101. The urine in winter, and of the inhabitants of very cold climates, is also frequently
highly colored, very acid, and becomes quickly and abundantly turbid after it has been
voided.