QUANTITATIVE SACCHAROMETER, 1892

Extract from "The Lancet" Dated January 16th 1892.

"Dr Edward Gans of Carlsbad has recently called the attention of the profession at Berlin to a simple instrument for the quantitative estimation of sugar in the urine, which is particularly adapted to the wants of the general practitioner, on account of its accuracy and ease of manipulation.

It consists of a U-shaped glass tube about six inches high, the longer leg of which is graduated as the annexed sketch shows, the shorter leg terminating in a glass bulb, on the extremity of which fits a glass stopper. The sides of the bulb of the stopper are pierced in corresponding diameters by two fine holes, so that the exit of air can be prevented by a slight turn of the latter.

To use the instrument, mix in the flask 10cc. of the urine to be examined with 90cc of clean water, and shake up with a piece of yeast the size of a coffee bean until there is no longer fragments of the yeast floating about in the vessel, then pour 10cc of this mixture into the bulb and adjust the stopper so that the holes in the bulb and stopper coincide. Now tilt the hole to the left so that the level of the fluid in the tube corresponds with the zero on the scale, and by a slight turn of the stopper shut of communication with the atmosphere. Leave the instrument in an ordinary room temperature (about 65 deg F) for eighteen to twenty four hours, and fermentation going on, the liquid in the tube will rise from the point 0 in proportion to the amount of sugar in the urine. The instrument is so graduated that the points on the scale correspond to the percentage of sugar, so that if the tube rises to 2.5 the percentage of sugar is 2.5.

After repeated experiments, Dr Gans found that the accuracy it almost equalled the method of polarisation, while in cases of the simultaneous presence of sugar and albumen in the urine it could be used when the polarimeter could not. (sic)"

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