On the Value of Urotropin as a Urinary Antiseptic with Especial Reference to Its Use in Typhoid Fever

In a previous number of this Journal t the writer published an article "Upon the Presence of the Typhoid Bacillus in the Urine," and, as the result of observations upon 38 cases of typhoid fever, drew the following conclusions: (1) Typhoid bacilli were demonstrated in 9 out of the 38 cases (about 25 per cent). (2) The bacilli, when demonstrated, were always present in large numbers, and in practically pure culture. (3) The bacilli appeared first in the later stages of the disease, and persisted, in the great majority of cases, far into convalescence. The urine of typhoid patients should, there for , not only be rigorously disinfected during the disease, but should also be carefully sup e r ~ e d during convalescence. (4) The typhoid bacilli were practically ahvays associated with albuminuria and the presence of renal casts. On the other hand, urines containing considerable amounts of albumin and casts in large numbers often showed no typhoid bacilli. (5) Irrigation of the bladder with antiseptic solutions offers a possible means for removing permanently the bacilli from the urine. Since the publication of that article two further contributions to the subject have come to my notice, the first by Horton-Smith and the second by Petruschky. The work of Horton-Smith appeared in 1897 in the Transactions of the Medical and Surgical Society of London, and should properly have been included in the literature mentioned in my previous article. Horton-Smith examined the urines