The Life and Work of William Prout

Brock, William H.

doi:10.1017/s0025727300030386

Cited by 25 publications

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“…He noted also sperm, and of course crystals: calcium and magnesium carbonate, and phosphates, including ammonium magnesium phosphate. Animal chemistry had developed rapidly since the beginning of the 19th century [43][44][45] and the chemical approach to disease was being applied in many centres throughout Europe, so Rayer and his pupils applied both approaches in parallel.…”

Section: The Urine Sediment Described: 1840-1900mentioning

confidence: 99%

A history of urine microscopy

Cameron

2015

Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)

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Abstract:The naked-eye appearance of the urine must have been studied by shamans and healers since the Stone Age, and an elaborate interpretation of so-called Uroscopy began around 600 AD as a form of divination. A 1000 years later, the first primitive monocular and compound microscopes appeared in the Netherlands, and along with many other objects and liquids, urine was studied from around 1680 onwards as the enlightenment evolved. However, the crude early instruments did not permit fine study because of chromatic and linear/spherical blurring. Only after complex multi-glass lenses which avoided these problems had been made and used in the 1820s in London by Lister, and in Paris by Chevalier and Amici, could urinary microscopy become a practical, clinically useful tool in the 1830s. Clinical urinary microscopy was pioneered by Rayer and his pupils in Paris (especially Vigla), in the late 1830s, and spread to UK and Germany in the 1840s, with detailed descriptions and interpretations of cells and formed elements of the urinary sediment by Nasse, Henle, Robinson and Golding Bird. Classes were held, most notably by Donné in Paris. After another 50 years, optical microscopy had reached its apogee, with magnifications of over 1000 times obtainable free of aberration, using immersion techniques. Atlases of the urinary sediment were published in all major European countries and in the US. Polarised light and phase contrast was used also after 1900 to study urine, and by the early 20th century, photomicroscopy (pioneered by Donné and Daguerre 50 years previously, but then ignored) became usual for teaching and recording. In the 1940s electron microscopy began, followed by detection of specific proteins and cells using immunofluorescent antibodies. All this had been using handheld methodology. Around 1980, machine-assisted observations began, and have dominated progress since.

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Section: The Urine Sediment Described: 1840-1900mentioning

confidence: 99%

A history of urine microscopy

Cameron

2015

Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)

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“…They believed that the composition and workings of the body required a study of the vital functions, and they denied chemistry a role in physiology. Prout was an early and consistent advocate of the benefits to be derived from the application of chemistry to physiology in the treatment of disease (8 ). He also favored the study of physics and chemistry by medical students.…”

Section: Analysis Of Urinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…When, after 1830, his hearing loss became complete he withdrew from scientific society. Much of Prout's research had foreshadowed that of Justus Liebig (1803-1873) and his school, but was soon eclipsed by their achievements in the 1830s and 1840s (8,25 ). Prout never referred to the action of oxygen on tissues, whereas Liebig and Wö hler based all their studies on the concept of tissue oxidation.…”

Section: Analysis Of Urinementioning

confidence: 99%

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William Prout: Early 19th Century Physician-Chemist

Rosenfeld¹

2003

Clinical Chemistry

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In the early 19th century, the discoveries of new substances in the healthy and diseased body spawned a search for chemical explanations for physiologic phenomena to guide medical diagnosis and control therapy. William Prout's work on the nature and treatment of diseases of the urinary organs established his reputation as one of Britain's most distinguished physiological chemists. Prout was very skeptical of chemical remedies because of possible side effects, but he suggested iodine treatment for goiter. He emphasized that a satisfactory diet should include carbohydrates, fats, protein, and water. In 1824, he showed that the acid of the gastric juice was hydrochloric acid. Prout applied chemical methods and reasoning to physiology and was criticized for his view that the body's vital functions could be explained by chemistry. His remedy for lack of progress in animal chemistry was for physiologists to become chemists. Prout stimulated much discussion on atomic theory by his hypothesis that the atomic weights of all chemical elements are whole-number multiples of the atomic weight of hydrogen and that the chemical elements were condensed from hydrogen atoms.

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“…Bostock also found by analysis involving alcohol and sodium nitrate: '... an animal matter possessing peculiar properties, which seemed to approach that of urea', in several of the supernatants after precipita tion of the albumin from the serum, particularly those of Roderick and West, the first time this had been noted. Bright remarked in a footnote that Prout (William Prout 1785-1850) [27] had also noted a substance similar to urea in a sample of blood provided by Bright. Prout had been a contemporary of Bright's in Edinburgh in 1810-1811 and the following year at Guy's Hospital; he was an important figure, along with Bostock in Britain and Andral in France, in the beginnings of clinical chemical pathology [28].…”

Section: Bostock's Work On Renal Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

John Bostock MD FRS (1773-1846): Physician and Chemist in the Shadow of a Genius

1994

Am J Nephrol

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John Bostock has a reasonable claim to being one of the first chemical pathologists. Most of his work was done before that of William Prout, with whom both he and Bright were in contact. Bostock’s work was done about the same time as that of his friends and colleagues Marcet and Wollaston. Although others, notably Cruickshank, Wells and Blackall had previously studied the chemistry of normal and pathological urine, the breadth and detail of Bostock’s observations were unprecedented, and he and Wells were the first to relate findings in the urine in disease to findings in the serum. Bostock, however, was the first to realize the relationship between the diminution of urea in urine as it rose (or in his terms, appeared) in the blood, while the albumin in the blood fell as that in the urine increased.

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The Life and Work of William Prout

Cited by 25 publications

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A history of urine microscopy

A history of urine microscopy

William Prout: Early 19th Century Physician-Chemist

John Bostock MD FRS (1773-1846): Physician and Chemist in the Shadow of a Genius

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