Micrographia — Observ. XII.

Observ.

XII.

_Of _Gravel_ in Urine.

_ I Have often observ’d the Sand or Gravel of Urine, which seems to be a _tartareous_ substance, generated out of a _saline_ and a _terrestrial_ substance _crystalliz’d_ together, in the form of _Tartar_, sometimes sticking to the sides of the _Urinal_, but for the most part sinking to the bottom, and there lying in the form of coorse common Sand; these, through the _Microscope_, appear to be a company of small bodies, partly transparent and partly _opacous_, some White, some Yellow, some Red, others of more brown and duskie colours.

The Figure of them is for the most part flat, in the manner of Slats or such like plated Stones, that is, each of them seem to be made up of several other thinner Plates, much like _Muscovie Glass_, or _English Sparr_ to the last of which, the white plated Gravel seems most likely; for they seem not onely plated like that, but their sides shap’d also into _Rhombs_, _Rhomboeids_, and sometimes into _Rectangles_ and _Squares_.

Their bigness and Figure may be seen in the second _Figure_ of the seventh _Plate_, which represents about a dozen of them lying upon a plate ABCD, some of which, as a, b, c, d seem’d more regular than the rest, and e, which was a small one, sticking on the top of another, was a perfect _Rhomboeid_ on the top, and had four _Rectangular_ sides.

The line E which was the measure of the _Microscope_, is ¹⁄₃₂ part of an _English_ Inch, so that the greatest bredth of any of them, exceeded not ¹⁄₁₂₈ part of an Inch.

Putting these into several liquors, I found _oyl of Vitriol_, _Spirit of Urine_, and several other _Saline menstruums_ to dissolve them; and the first of these in less than a minute without _Ebullition_, Water, and several other liquors, had no sudden operation upon them.

This I mention, because those liquors that dissolve them, first make them very white, not _vitiating_, but rather rectifying their Figure, and thereby make them afford a very pretty object for the _Microscope_.

How great an advantage it would be to such as are troubled with the Stone, to find some _menstruum_ might dissolve them without hurting the Bladder, is easily imagin’d, since some _injections_ made of such bodies might likewise dissolve the stone, which seems much of the same nature.

It may therefore, perhaps, be worthy some Physicians enquiry, whether there may not be something mixt with the Urine in which the Gravel or Stone lies, which may again make it dissolve it, the first of which seems by it’s regular Figures to have been sometimes _Crystalliz’d_ out of it.

For whether this _Crystallization_ be made in the manner as _Alum_, _Peter_, &c. are _crystallized_ out of a cooling liquor, in which, by boyling they have been dissolv’d; or whether it be made in the manner of _Tartarum Vitriolatum_, that is, by the _Coalition_ of an _acid_ and a _Sulphureous_ substance, it seems not impossible, but that the liquor it lies in, may be again made a _dissolvent_ of it.

But leaving these inquiries to Physicians or Chymists, to whom it does more properly belong, I shall proceed.

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