ABSTRACT
In 1850, Dr William Macintyre, a 53-year-old Harley Street consultant and physician to the Metropolitan Convalescent Institution and to the Western General Dispensary, St Marylebone,1 described one of his patients as follows:
Because edema had been noted, Dr Macintyre examined the urine but found no evidence of sugar. The urine specimen was opaque, acid, and of high density, with a specific gravity of 1.035. When heated, it was found to ‘abound in animal matter.’ The precipitate dissolved on boiling but again consolidated on cooling. The urine sample and following note were sent by Dr Macintyre and a leading physician of London, Dr Thomas Watson, to Dr Henry Bence Jones, a 31-year-old physician at St George’s Hospital, who had already established a reputation as a chemical pathologist.3
