THE QUANTITATIVE DETERMINATION OF ALBUMIN IN SPUTUM WITH POTASSIUM FERROCYANID

In summing up the annual records of sputa examinations in the past years it has been somewhat humiliating to realize that specific information has been given from the laboratory findings in only a little over one-fourth of the cases. The remaining three-fourths have been reported back negative, meaning that the patient may or may not have been afflicted with tuberculosis. The investigations of the albumin test during the past three years have inspired the laboratory worker with a new hope. The possibility of being able definitely to exclude tuberculosis by laboratory methods in a large proportion of cases is comforting, and the probability of giving valuable assistance in the diagnosis of incipient cases, while still closed, before the bacilli appear in the sputum is encouraging; but the additional announcement of a quantitative method and the presumptive relation between the percentage of albumin and progress of the case incites our fondest