Isolation and Examination of Urinary Metabolites Containing an Aromatic System

It is becoming increasingly evident that patho- logical states may lead to urinary excretion of abnormal metabolites, and that in such cases identification of these metabolites may be a valu- able diagnostic aid and may give a clue to the fundamental lesion. Classical test-tube colour re- actions are of little value owing to the enormous complexity of urine and the, in general, relatively unspecific nature of the reagents. The exceedingly high resolving power of chromatographic methods and their technical simplicity enables separation of metabolites to be carried out before identifying tests are applied and so makes it possible to derive far more information from much less material than was formerly possible.