The voiding of the urine should not be attended with the slightest pain
or disagreeable sensations, and the desire to pass it should not be
frequent. When there is frequent desire to pass it, or when its passage
is attended with pain, there is irritation, or inflammation, in the
coats of the bladder, or in the urethra. This may arise from an
excessively acid or irritating condition of the urine, as well as from
various other causes. Gonorrhea, or clap; stricture of the urethra,
which impedes the free flow of the urine; enlargement or inflammation of
the prostate gland; gravel, and stone in the bladder, are all capable of
creating a frequent desire to pass water. Whatever the unhealthy
condition may be which gives rise to this troublesome symptom, it calls
for prompt and skillful treatment, for the most trivial affections of
these organs often pass into those that are exceedingly intractable, if
not incurable.

THE EXAMINATION OF THE URINE. The urine itself, when subjected to
microscopical or chemical examination, as we shall hereafter more fully
explain, offers the best means of determining the exact nature of these
distressing affections. When normal, the urine is of a pale straw-color,
and throws down no deposits on cooling. In passing it no difficulty or
pain should be experienced, and it should spurt from the urethra in a
full, round, and regular stream, until the bladder is entirely emptied.
If the stream is forked, checked, or interrupted in any way before the
bladder is completely emptied, it is evidence that something is wrong.
Stricture of the urethra, prostatic disease, and gravel, or stone in the
bladder, are all capable of producing obstruction to the free flow of
the urine.

HOW SLIGHT AILMENTS BECOME DANGEROUS DISEASES. As we have before stated,
the mucous membrane lining the bladder is reflected upwards into the
ureters, lining these canals. By reason of this continuity of mucous
surfaces, patients suffering from urethral, prostatic, and bladder
affections, often die from disease of the kidneys. It must not be
supposed that because stricture of the urethra does not co-exist with
_Brights_ disease, that the latter may not have been caused by the
obstruction in the urethra due to stricture. Pulmonary consumption, for
instance, often begins in the form of nasal catarrh, but, by the
continuity of the mucous membrane, it travels, so to speak, into the
throat, or pharnyx; from the pharnyx into the larnyx, an