Bright's disease

“ One disease is very often the next preceding cause of another. So we speak of the great class of sequelæ of acute or subacute disorders; as, ophthalmia after measles, deafness following scarlet fever, or blindness small-pox, abscesses following typhoid fever, paralysis diphtheria, etc. But this kind of causation is extremely common also in chronic affections. What a train of organic troubles, of kidneys, heart, arteries, brain, and other parts, attend the affection to which we give the name of Bright's disease! ”

“ James M. Foss, assistant superintendent and master mechanic of the Vermont Central railroad, is also able to confirm this.
I do not claim to be a great discoverer, but I do think I have found in the above a most remarkable case and knowing the unusual increase of Bright's disease feel that the public should have the benefit of it. It seems to me a remedy that can accomplish so much in the last stages ought do even more for the first approach of this deceptive yet terrible trouble.
F. B.
To be ruined your own way is some comfort. ”

“ The expression of the face varies with the disease. In whooping cough and measles the face is swollen and somewhat flushed, giving the child a heavy, stupid expression. There is also swelling of the face, especially about the eyes, in Bright's disease. Repeated momentary crossing of the eyes often indicates approaching convulsions. In very severe acute diarrhea it is astonishing with what rapidity the face will become sunken and shriveled, and so covered with deep lines that the baby is almost unrecognizable. ”

“ To describe the condition of the patient whose blood is low and deprived of the richness, warmth, and bloom, it once possessed when it kindled admiration and enthusiasm in others, is but to give a picture of a numerous class of female invalids. It is sad to see beauty fading, vigor waning, and Bright's disease or consumption slowly wasting the blood and consuming the vital cells, until the spirit can no longer dwell in its earthly abode and death claims the skeleton for dust. ”

“ It is never to be given in acute Bright’s disease, but is frequently of use in chronic Bright’s disease, where digitalis, owing to its influence on the already over-contracted arterioles, is absolutely contra-indicated. ”

“ IT is, perhaps, difficult for the average mind to grasp the fundamental natural principle of the Unity of Disease—to realize that disease is not only the warning of nature, but her remedy in sickness. The symptoms expressing disease may be specifically named and classified—it may be said that a patient suffers from Bright's Disease, from eczema, from diphtheria, or from smallpox, but behind the symptom lies the cause, and the body is not to be thought of as ill in a special locality or in an individualized organ. ”

“ One notices the terrible death toll in America due to Bright's disease. I can no longer doubt that the high meat diet ruins the kidneys, especially in view of Dr. Newburgh's experiments, proving as they do that we may, with mathematical certainty, produce Bright's disease even in rats by placing them on a high meat diet. ”

“ Prunty read the whole page, including a description of the way that dread disease ruins the complexion, by making it pasty and corpselike, and then laid the book down with conviction in his eyes.
"From this," said he, motioning at the book with his glasses, "it would seem to be all off."
"If it's Bright's disease," said Billy, "that causes this lesion of the major lower digit, the prognosis is, no doubt, extremely grave. But while there's life, you know—"
"Yes," answered Mr. Prunty, "that is a comfort, of course. Does he know what ails him?" ”

“ In Bright's disease, the mumia of the afflicted should be planted at 1 a.m., with a cutting of sassafras, after the latter has been slept on, for one whole night, by the sufferer. As soon as the sassafras begins to rot, the patient will be cured. ”

“ Outcome.—While the outlook as to complete recovery is very discouraging, yet persons may live and be able to work for years in comparative comfort in many cases. When a physician pronounces the verdict of chronic Bright's disease, it is not by any means equivalent to a death warrant, but the condition is often compatible with many years of usefulness and freedom from serious suffering. ”

“ In some forms relapses and recurrent attacks are to be expected: in others they seldom occur. In many cases there is no more probability of transmission to children than in Bright's disease, and no more likelihood of subsequent attacks than in typhoid fever. ”

“ All of our money, all of our energy, seem to be directed against diseases that can be communicated. Is not a life lost from Bright’s disease as valuable as one lost by typhoid fever?
The annual loss from pneumonia aggregates 135,000 lives, a large portion of which is due to weakened bodily resistance resulting from these degenerative affections.
Cancer, a baffling disease to which our people in their present physical condition are highly susceptible, claims 75,000 lives annually and is increasing very fast. Deaths from external cancer alone have increased 52 per cent. ”

“ Diseases of the heart and arteries, Bright's disease, and cancer together carry off 300,000 men and women every year, and we are face to face with the sinister fact that while at every other point of the battle line we are at least holding our own, these diseases of later life appear to be actually on the increase. ”

“ The increased functional activity of the organs, the elevation of blood-pressure, the alterations in the constitution of the blood, are doubtless potential factors. When any latent tendency to Bright's disease exists, exposure to cold and impeded cutaneous functional activity are more likely to develop the disease in the pregnant than in the non-gravid state. ”

“ Recovery usually occurs, in favorable cases, within a few weeks, with gradually diminishing dropsy and increasing secretion of urine, or the disease may end in a chronic disorder of the kidneys. If acute Bright's disease is caused by, or complicated with, other diseases, the probable result becomes much more difficult to predict. ”

“ The opposite conditions of living do not, however, secure immunity from the attack. During an epidemic aged persons, those enfeebled by chronic diseases, and in particular those subject to chronic bronchitis, consumption, emphysema, fatty heart, and Bright's disease should be cared for with unusual diligence and solicitude, since they constitute the classes most prone to the graver complications of the disease, and from which its fatal cases are almost wholly derived. Such individuals should be warmly clad ”

“ Suppression of perspiration, by exposure to cold and wet, want of cleanliness, deficiency of nutritious diet, liver disease, certain poisons in the system, as of scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas or diphtheria, taken in conjunction with sedentary habits, bad air, excessive mental labor or worry, may each occasion an albuminous urine, and finally result in Bright's disease, but of all causes that appear to produce this disease, none are so prolific as intemperance. ”

“ It is just as absurd to say that the will can bring about the cure of Bright's disease as it is to suggest that one can by will power replace a finger that has been lost. When definite changes have taken place in tissues, above all when connective tissue cells have by inflammatory processes come to take the place of organic tissue cells, then it is idle to talk of bringing about a cure, though sometimes relief of symptoms may be secured; above all the compensatory powers of the body {103} may be called upon and will often bring relief, for a time, at least. ”

“ Or a patient who has been troubled with dyspeptic symptoms and gradual loss of strength suddenly develops vomiting, intense headache, sleeplessness, a single convulsion followed by facial paralysis. A man with a previous history of chronic Bright's disease becomes persistently anæmic and dropsical; he has constant dyspnoea, cannot lie down, cannot sleep, and yet looks drowsy and stupid; is mildly delirious and has very little intelligence ”

“ At the age of 121⁄2 years I took scarlet fever, followed by a weak heart, which grew stronger after a year, and Bright's disease, which lasted fifteen years with hardly a break. This illness had its wonted effect of producing melancholia and upsetting the whole nervous system. Bright's disease stopped suddenly but was followed by a succession of illnesses. Then I had neuritis very badly. I then removed to Bavaria, and to regain nervous strength I was treated by Freud's psychoanalytical method, with great success. ”

“ All medical students, and most doctors, pass through a period when they are convinced that they have chronic Bright’s disease, and it is not till after visiting their physicians in an agony of mind that they are relieved of their mental distress. ”

“ Anatomical changes in the brain or its membranes do exist in a considerable number of cases of chronic Bright's disease. Chronic meningitis with thickening of the pia mater and an increase of serum is quite common; anæmia and oedema of the brain-tissue are often seen. But there are a great many cases with cerebral symptoms without such lesions, and with such lesions without cerebral symptoms. ”

“ In addition to extrinsic dangers, particularly those of Bright's disease, cerebral thrombosis and hæmorrhage, and bronchitis, failure of the heart is liable to supervene and prove fatal from the gravest of all intrinsic causes, namely, coronary degeneration. As this increases, the myocardium is steadily more and more impoverished ”

“ The author believes that, in many instances, persons afflicted with Bright's disease may, by proper management, enjoy comfort and comparative good health for many years, and even outlive thousands around them who are in vigorous health. ”

“ Neither will the most indubitable evidence of Bright's disease, such as dropsy, hypertrophy of the heart, rigid arteries, with fatty and waxy casts in the urine, do so, for, as we have already seen, not only is there nothing in the presence of nephritis to exclude apoplexy, but the very form, the interstitial, which, from the supervention of coma not preceded by other very severe symptoms, most nearly counterfeits apoplexy, is also the most likely to give rise to actual cerebral hemorrhage. ”

“ Sometimes symptoms indistinguishable from those of migraine persist for many years in cases of chronic Bright’s disease; and there is reason to suspect that it may be accompanied by some sudden constriction of an artery in the brain. In the worst cases the pain also affects the eye; and occasionally there is confusion of speech or even positive aphasia. Possibly even a stroke of paralysis may occur, and there is the usual fear of insanity that seems to accompany all nervous troubles in highly neurotic men. ”

“ Cardio-vascular disorder and disease referable to nervous strain pure and simple is amenable to treatment by complete and prolonged rest or relaxation in the majority of instances. Still, death may occur from sudden cardiac failure; or should advice be neglected or soon forgotten, as happens so frequently in these subjects, the attendant high arterial tension and vascular degeneration too often end in cerebral lesions, with or without Bright's disease. ”

“ Here, again, I believe it is in great measure the true nature of the old-standing disease, not the physical signs such as irregularity of pulse or mitral bruit, that ought to be taken into account. A heart enlarged and a radial artery thickened by prolonged activity and nothing else will suffice to carry a man safely through an attack of influenzal pneumonia; but what chance is there for the chronic alcoholic under similar circumstances, or for the subject of chronic Bright's disease? ”

“ Coming away with precious advice, he feels he omitted to describe all his symptoms, begins to doubt if the specialist really understands his case, and so the pitiful farce goes on—for years.
The extraordinary fact is that while he is suffering (sic) from cancer, or heart disease, or Bright's disease, and spasmodically from minor affections like tuberculosis, arterio-sclerosis, and liver-fluke, he is probably running a successful business. While making money he forgets his ills ”

“ That intemperance is a fruitful source of Bright's disease has long been known, and the reason of this is not far to seek, seeing that it is the special duty of the kidneys to eliminate alcohol from the general circulation—as they do all other foreign materials. And the more work that is thrown upon an organ, the more prone are its tissues to become degenerated. ”