Milk or albumin? The history of proteinuria before Richard Bright.

‘‘I have also found that these [water of consumptives] when placed on the fire, soon become milky, really smelled like milk, and had the taste of sweet milk; when a drop or two of acetic acid were added to this, and it was then placed in the cool air, shortly a white rennet, namely the caseous part, sank to the bottom, and the oily or buttery part floated up and there was a sweet whey, quite homogeneous, free now of the different parts; wherefrom we might conclude that this urine is a kind of clear and very thin watery chyle, or nourishing fluid’’.