The precipitate is well washed with hot water, then with alcohol

1 Sometimes a cloudiness develops on the addition of the acetic acid ;
this is due to mucin or nucleo-albumin, and should be removed by filtration.
188 THE EXAMINATION OE THE URINE chap.
and ether; it is dried and weighed; the additional weight will
represent the percentage amount of albumin.
In addition to the albumin precipitated by boiling, the
urine may contain forms of albumin which are not precipi-
tated by heat. These forms also result in gastric digestion
of albumin. It has recently been proven that the end
product of the gastric digestion of albumin {Kuhne's pep-
tone) does not appear in the urine, but that only premature
stages of the same (albumoses and propeptones) are there
found. It is a mistake, therefore, to speak of a peptonwia ;
w-e ought to call that condition albumosuria. However, this
term has up to this time been very little used.
The albumoses (peptone in the old sense) are not precipi-
tated by heat and by acids ; their presence is determined by
the biuret test after the other albuminous bodies have been
precipitated and removed by filtration.
The albumoses are found in urine, especially in cases
of absorption of purulent or fibrinous exudations (pyogenic
albumosuria), especially in cases of pneumonia shortly
before ■ and after the crisis, in purulent meningitis, in
peritonitis, in empyema, at times in cases of intestinal
ulceration, in many diseases of the liver, in puerperal
fever {enterogenous, hepatogenous, and p?terpe?-aZ albumosur
ria). Albumosuria is chiefly diagnostic of suppuration, but
should be estimated only with great precaution.
Test for peptone (Hofmeister's test). Add to 500 cc. of urine 50 cc.
