Smears from the female urethra and their relationship to smears of the urinary sediment.

IN a previous paper (1) del Castillo, Argonz and Galli Mainini in 1948 reported the results of an investigation on a special aspect of the cytologic content of the urinary sediment in women. From that study we showed that: 1. The cells present in the urinary sediment of women, when this sediment is smeared, fixed and stained with Shorr's technique, are very similar to, but not identical, with the vaginal cells. 2. These cells, contrary to what can be supposed, are not vaginal cells washed out by the urinary stream. In the previous report we showed that they come from somewhere in the epithelium of the urinary tract; and the present report, which confirms our previous findings, deals with the principal sources of the mentioned cells. 3. The cytologic content of the vaginal smear and of the urine sediment, taken simultaneously from the same patient, show a striking similarity: each one undergoes the same morphologic and staining changes in relation to the absence, normal presence, or therapeutic administrat...