Kidney

“ The kidneys begin to suffer and give out; the supra-renal capsules change their fibre, and no longer act as storehouses for the kidney-life placed there daily by the watchful soul. The bladder goes next, then the testes, prostate, ovaries, or uterus follow; and before you know it, the man or woman is a splendid wreck. ”

“ For some reason or other, too technical for a layman to understand, it is a very wonderful kidney. Now it happens that a young woman physician discovered the patient with that kidney and diagnosed it. A woman surgeon operated on that kidney and removed it successfully. Then a man physician came along and borrowed it and read a paper on it at a medical convention. He is now chronicled throughout the [248] medical fraternity with the entire credit for the kidney.
“And it isn’t his. It’s our kidney,” I heard the girl doctor say with flashing eyes. ”

“ The kidney may be ulcerated, and contain grubs, as well as the liver, it being likewise a gland, but much smaller than the liver. You can injure the kidneys by food, as all water or liquids go immediately to the kidneys; sweet spices and all acids should be avoided, as they coat the kidneys, and cause the gravel; the ureter, or pipe which takes the water to the bladder, finally gets filled and obstructed, so the water cannot pass thence. ”

“ The kidneys. 2. Ureters. 3. Bladder. 4. Aorta. 5. Inferior vena cava. 6. Renal arteries. 7. Renal veins. Structure of the Kidneys.—Each kidney is a compound tubular gland and is composed chiefly of the parts concerned in secretion. The ureter serves as a duct for removing the secretion, while the blood supplies the materials from which the secretion is formed. On making a longitudinal section of the kidney, the upper end of the ureter is found to expand into a basin-like enlargement which is embedded in the concave side of the kidney. ”

“ The kidney, until thirty years ago, was deemed almost beyond our reach, but now entire volumes have been written on the surgery of the kidney, and it is, one might say, a frequent occurrence to see the kidney exposed, sewed fast if it is loose, opened to remove a stone in its interior, drained if there be an abscess, or, if it be hopelessly diseased, it is removed in its entirety. ”

“ Deeply covered in a mass of suet, each kidney has a strong outer, white, fibrous covering, and inside this two successive layers of kidney substance, of which the outer is that in which the urine is mainly separated from the blood and poured into the fine, microscopic urinary ducts. ”

“ In most diseases the quantity of urinary water is diminished, especially in those in which the activity of the circulation is impaired. There are diseases, however, more especially the granular kidney and certain forms of chronic Bright’s disease, in which the quantity of urinary water is considerably increased, notwithstanding the profound anatomical changes that have occurred in the kidney. There are two forms of suppression of the urine: one is obstructive suppression, seen where the ureter is blocked by stone or other morbid process ”

“ The kidney is enclosed in a rigid metal box, the arrangement being such that while the organ can freely expand or contract, and while the changes in volume are recorded by a lever writing with a light glass pen upon the kymograph paper, no obstruction is offered to the entrance and exit of blood by the renal vessels nor to the outflow of urine by the ureter. ”

“ It is exceptional for the large branches of the renal artery to be blocked, so that the symptoms produced in the ordinary cases are only the temporary appearance of blood or albumen in the urine. Blocking of the main renal vessels as a result of disease of the walls of the vessels may lead to disorganization of the kidneys. Blocking of the veins, leading to extreme congestion of the kidney, also occurs. ”

“ Fatal terminations, however, do now and again occur, sometimes as a result of injury to the bladder-wall setting up inflammation, which extends to the kidneys, sometimes from suppression of urine. Those cases in which there has been a fatal result most frequently have been complicated with old-standing kidney disease. ”

“ Serious complications may result from the presence of a stone in the kidney, such as hydronephrosis, from the urinary secretion being pent up behind the obstruction, or complete suppression, which is apparently produced reflexly through the nervous system. ”

“ The kidneys are often found imbedded in a mass of fat which must first be removed. Their surface is sometimes of a greenish color owing to the beginning of putrefaction. We note the size of the organ, its color and weight. A normal kidney weighs from four and one-half to five ounces. Grasping the kidney firmly in the left hand, we make an incision in its capsule along its convex border, and with a forceps strip off the capsule and note its degree of adherence and the condition of the surface of the organ ”

“ As a matter of fact and experience, those who drink innocuous and unstimulating fluids freely do not suffer from kidney trouble, but are almost uniformly healthy—at least, so far as the excreting functions are concerned. It is a popular fallacy that the kidneys may and ought to be relieved by the determination of fluid to the surface of the body and perspiration. ”

“ The kidneys are two important organs in the abdomen, one on each side of the spine. They are of a reddish-brown color, and are enveloped by a transparent capsule made up of a fold of the peritoneum. Embedded in fat, the kidneys lie between the upper lumbar vertebræ, and the crest of the hip bone. The liver is above the right kidney, and the spleen above the left, while both lie close against the rear wall of the abdomen, with the intestines in front of them. ”

“ The kidney in the foetus is lobulated, but the intervals between the lobes become smoothed out in later years of childhood. Each gland is invested the renal artery from the aorta passes. Here also the renal vein escapes and joins the vena cava inferior. The ureter or metanephric duct, always behind and below the blood vessels, emerges here and passes downward to the bladder. When the kidney is longitudinally divided from hilum to outer edge, the cut surface is seen to consist of two parts-an outer layer, the cortex, and an inner part, the medulla (fig. 1) . ”

“ An enhancement of the pressure of the blood flowing through the kidney had no influence on the quantity of the secretion passing away. An increased rate of movement on the part of the blood, on the other hand, increased in equal degree the quantity of urine. On a solution of common salt or of mere serum sanguinis being poured through the kidney, no secretion followed. ”

“ To those who have received the knowledge of the connections of dropsy, albuminous urine, and disease of the kidney, among the first rudiments of medicine, the facts which establish that connection may appear so simple and easily ascertained, that the amount of labour, the accuracy of the observation and the rigid adherence to the inductive method which characterised the whole of Bright’s researches, may hardly have been suspected, still less adequately appreciated. ”

“ The most rational hygiene of the kidneys for the prevention of kidney diseases consists in the avoidance of all those causes which are injurious to the kidneys, and which we have mentioned in the previous chapter. A great part of the poisonous products that are eliminated by the kidneys are introduced with the food and beverages, and it is important for us to bear in mind the fact that what we eat or drink must pass through our kidneys, and that the structure of these organs is delicate ”

“ Do not let slight or severe Kidney Disorders develop into Cancerous Decay, Twin Complaints—Kidney Liver Diseases. Cure them! Put both in strong active order. There is not a safer, surer, speedier remedy in existence. Myriads of people thank Providence for Dr. Var’s Kidney Pills. Should be taken for Natural Weak Kidneys. ”

“ One hundred and ninety-eight times the kidney has been removed, and 105 human lives have been saved; 83 times abscesses in the kidney have been opened, and 66 lives saved; 17 times stones have been removed from the kidney without a single death—or, in all, in the last fifteen years, 298 operations, and 188 human lives saved. Besides this, as an extension of the operation in 17 cases, in which the kidney, having no such attachments as ought to anchor it in place, was floating loosely in the abdomen and a source of severe pain, it has been cut down upon and sewed fast in its proper place ”

“ Congenital Affections.—The principal congenital affections are anomalies in the number or position of the kidneys or of their ducts; atrophy; cystic disease and growths. The most common abnormality is the existence of a single kidney; rarely a supernumerary kidney may be present. The presence of a single kidney may be due to failure of development, or to atrophy in foetal life; it may also be dependent on the fusion of originally separate kidneys in such a way as to lead to the formation of a horse-shoe kidney, the two organs being connected at their lower ends. ”

“ Kidney troubles. Human urine, both internally and externally; goose-dung, internally; sheep-dung, externally; donkey or deer dung, internally.
Kidney diseases, stone in the bladder. Take internally human urine or water, distilled over human ordure, or the dried catamenia of women, or the scrapings of chamber-pots taken in brandy.— (Paullini, pp. 142, 143.)
Gravel. The patient’s own urine, internally; or the dung of pigeons, rats, chickens, mice, wild hogs, or donkeys, both internally and externally.
Excessive urination. The dung of goats, mice, or wild hog, internally. ”

“ In the same way the kidneys can also be kept in good condition if too much meat be not taken. These eliminate the end-products of meat food, and the more of such products that pass through the kidneys, the more of them are taken from the blood and excreted by means of the fine epithelia of the kidney tubules, and thus the more is the work done by these organs; and we have mentioned that any overwork of an organ may be followed by its exhaustion. ”

“ The soundness of the other kidney, however, may be considered highly probable if in spite of demonstrated extensive disease of one kidney a sufficient quantity of urine with a normal amount of urea and salts continues to be formed. ”

“ Persons with floating kidney are nearly always thin, often giving a history of rapid loss of weight, have usually various symptoms of gastric and intestinal disturbance, and present therefore subjects in all ways suitable for a fattening and blood-making régime which shall furnish padding to hold the kidney firmly in its normal place. ”

“ As to the causes of kidney disease, it may be said that any thing which will give rise to a greater or less degree of congestion of the kidney will induce either a temporary albuminous condition of the urine, or a true Bright's disease of the kidneys. ”

“ It provides points of value in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, being especially useful in nephritis, diabetes, acidosis, comatose conditions, gout, and in questions of renal function and treatment, especially dietetic. Urine findings are always dependent upon kidney function, and, by blood chemistry, we can pass behind this barrier. ”

“ The renal arteries pass one to each kidney, in which they for the most part end, but in the substance of the organ they give off small perforating branches, which pierce the capsule of the kidney, and are distributed in the surrounding fat. ”

“ The immediate causes of inflammatory action in this viscus are blows and contusions in the lumbar region; hard work long continued, and the imprudent use of stimulating substances employed as aphrodisiacs; the presence of calculi in the kidney, and the arrest of the urine in the bladder. The whole of the kidney may be affected with anæmia or defect of blood, or this may be confined to the cortical substance, or even to the tubular. The kidneys are occasionally much larger than usual, without any other change of structure ”

“ It necessitates the removal of the kidney, however, and when for any reason one kidney is removed the other increases in size and does double work to compensate for the loss. Removal of both kidneys means death. Sometimes the kidney becomes loose and moves about, a condition known as floating kidney. Perinephritic abscess is abscess in the loose fatty tissue about the kidney. ”

“ For no doubt the diameter of the renal blood-vessels is augmented by their engorgement, and consequently they exert a deleterious pressure on the intervascular tissues, which will interfere with their proper nourishment. While, further, this engorgement of the renal vessels will render the kidneys more liable to the injurious effects of chills; and chills are, as is well known, the most fruitful cause of kidney disease. ”

“ The symptoms of renal calculus may be very slight, or they may be entirely absent if the stone is moulding itself into the interior of the kidney; but if the stone is movable, heavy and rough, it may cause great distress, especially during exercise. ”

“ In man and in other mammals there are two kidneys, one on each side of vertebral column in the back part of the abdomen, each kidney being connected with the bladder by a long tube, the ureter, through which the urine is constantly excreted into the bladder to be periodically discharged. ”

“ Prognosis. Life is endangered in case of any subsequent kidney disease.
241 ATROPHY OF THE KIDNEY. Result of hyperplasia of connective tissues and compression and absorption of parenchyma. Unilateral or partial. Causes: chronic productive inflammation, calculus in tubes, ureter, or pelvis, tumor, retention cyst, embolism. Lesions: sclerosis of kidney, firmness, pallor, anæmia, lack of glomeruli and tubules, cysts, congenital, urinous retention, colloid. Symptoms: reduced secretion, palpation of kidney. ”