Medicine: Urinalysis Machine

A machine set up in one of Houston’s Rice Hotel’s men’s washrooms last week induces a customer to drop a 25¢ piece into a slot. The machine then presents a funnel in which the man may deposit a sample of urine. That done, he pulls a lever which automatically pours the fluid into two smaller, transparent containers. As the customer waits, the machine automatically squirts acid into one of the containers, a mixed solution into the second. If the urine in the first container shows white, the man has kidney trouble. If the other sample of urine turns red or yellow he has diabetes.

Dr. Johnson Peyton Barnes of Houston and Dr. John Bryan Rushing of Hemphill, Tex., who together invented the urinalayzer, hope to install duplicates in washrooms throughout the nation.