Cclxx. Clinical Tests for Bilirubin in Urine

THE usual tests for bilirubinuria in routine clinical work are relatively insensitive; that this has long been recognised is shown by the various attempts to introduce more sensitive tests from time to time, but none of these has been widely employed. The object of this paper is to review once more the available methods, and to describe a simple yet very sensitive test which, in the opinion of the writer, could with advantage be generally adopted in clinical work. In order to compare the relative sensitivity of the different tests on a quantitative basis, it was necessary in the first instance to be able to estimate the amount of bilirubin in the urines examined. For this purpose the diazo-method [Hunter, 1930] has been modified to yield a satisfactory quantitative procedure.