Opening

A SYSTEM OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE.

BY AMERICAN AUTHORS.

EDITED BY WILLIAM PEPPER, M.D., LL.D.,

PROVOST AND PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND OF CLINICAL MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

ASSISTED BY LOUIS STARR, M.D.,

CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF DISEASES OF CHILDREN IN THE HOSPITAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

VOLUME IV.

DISEASES OF THE GENITO-URINARY AND CUTANEOUS SYSTEMS.--MEDICAL OPHTHALMOLOGY, AND OTOLOGY.

PHILADELPHIA: LEA BROTHERS & CO. 1886.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by

LEA BROTHERS & CO.,

WESTCOTT & THOMSON, Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada.

WILLIAM J. DORNAN, Printer, Philada.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.

DISEASES OF THE GENITO-URINARY SYSTEM. PAGE DISEASES OF THE KIDNEYS, INCLUDING THE PELVIS OF THE KIDNEYS. By ROBERT T. EDES, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

DISEASES OF THE PARENCHYMA OF THE KIDNEYS, AND PERINEPHRITIS. By FRANCIS DELAFIELD, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

HÆMATURIA AND HÆMOGLOBINURIA OR HÆMATINURIA. By JAMES TYSON, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

CHYLURIA. By JAMES TYSON, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

DISEASES OF THE MALE BLADDER. By EDWARD L. KEYES, A.M., M.D. . . . 123

SEMINAL INCONTINENCE. By SAMUEL W. GROSS, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . 137

DISPLACEMENTS OF THE UTERUS. By EDWARD C. DUDLEY, A.B., M.D. . . . 147

DISORDERS OF THE UTERINE FUNCTIONS, INCLUDING AMENORRHOEA, DYSMENORRHOEA, AND MENORRHAGIA. By J. C. REEVE, M.D. . . . . . . 182

INFLAMMATION OF THE PELVIC CELLULAR TISSUE AND PELVIC PERITONEUM. By B. F. BAER, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

PELVIC HÆMATOCELE. By T. GAILLARD THOMAS, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . 239

FIBROUS TUMORS OF THE UTERUS. By WILLIAM H. BYFORD, M.D. . . . . . 245

SARCOMA OF THE UTERUS. By WILLIAM H. BYFORD, M.D. . . . . . . . . 271

CARCINOMA OR CANCER OF THE UTERUS. By WILLIAM H. BYFORD, M.D. . . 274

DISEASES OF THE OVARIES AND OVIDUCTS. By WILLIAM GOODELL, M.D. . . 282

DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS IN WOMEN. By ALEXANDER J. C. SKENE, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

DISEASES OF THE VAGINA AND VULVA. By EDWARD W. JENKS, M.D., LL.D. 367

DISORDERS OF PREGNANCY. By W. W. JAGGARD, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . 405

FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS IN CONNECTION WITH THE MENOPAUSE. By W. W. JAGGARD, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

DISEASES OF THE PARENCHYMA OF THE UTERUS; METRITIS AND ENDOMETRITIS, INCLUDING LEUCORRHOEA. By W. W. JAGGARD, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

ABORTION. By GEORGE J. ENGELMANN, M.D. (Berlin) . . . . . . . . . 467

DISEASES OF THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM.[1]

[Footnote 1: Though properly belonging in Vol. V., with Diseases of the Nervous System, this section has been placed here for convenience.]

MYALGIA. By JAMES C. WILSON, A.M., M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

PROGRESSIVE MUSCULAR ATROPHY. By JAMES TYSON, A.M., M.D. . . . . . 540

PSEUDO-HYPERTROPHIC PARALYSIS. By MARY PUTNAM JACOBI, M.D. . . . . 557

DISEASES OF THE SKIN.

DISEASES OF THE SKIN. By LOUIS A. DUHRING, M.D., and HENRY W. STELWAGON, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

MEDICAL OPHTHALMOLOGY.

MEDICAL OPHTHALMOLOGY. By WILLIAM F. NORRIS, A.M., M.D. . . . . . 737

MEDICAL OTOLOGY.

MEDICAL OTOLOGY. By GEORGE STRAWBRIDGE, M.D. . . . . . . . . . . . 807

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843

CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME IV.

BAER, B. F., M.D., Professor of Obstetrics and Gynæcology in the Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for Graduates in Medicine, and Dean of the Faculty; Obstetrician to Maternity Hospital; President of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia, etc.

BYFORD, WILLIAM H., M.D., Professor of Gynæcology in the Rush Medical College, Chicago.

DELAFIELD, FRANCIS, M.D., Professor of Pathology and Practical Medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York.

DUDLEY, EDWARD C., A.B., M.D., Professor of Gynæcology in the Chicago Medical College, Chicago.

DUHRING, LOUIS A., M.D., Professor of Skin Diseases in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

EDES, ROBERT T., M.D., Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine in Harvard University, Boston, Mass.

ENGELMANN, GEORGE J., M.D. (Berlin), Professor of Obstetrics and Gynæcology in the St. Louis Polyclinic and Post-Graduate School of Medicine.

GOODELL, WILLIAM, M.D., Professor of Clinical Gynæcology in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

GROSS, SAMUEL W., A.M., M.D., Professor of the Principles of Surgery and of Clinical Surgery in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia.

JACOBI, MARY PUTNAM, M.D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Women's Medical College, New York, and Professor of Diseases of Children at the New York Post-Graduate School.

JAGGARD, W. W., A.M., M.D., Professor of Obstetrics in the Chicago Medical College, Medical Department Northwestern University; Obstetrician to Mercy Hospital, Chicago.

JENKS, EDWARD W., M.D., LL.D., Detroit, Michigan, Formerly Professor of Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women and Clinical Gynæcology in the Chicago Medical College, and in the Post-Graduate Medical School of New York.

KEYES, EDWARD L., A.M., M.D., Professor of Genito-Urinary Surgery and Syphilis in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York; Surgeon to Bellevue Hospital; Consulting Surgeon to the Charity Hospital.

NORRIS, WILLIAM F., A.M., M.D., Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology in the University of Pennsylvania, Surgeon to Wills Ophthalmic Hospital, Philadelphia.

REEVE, J. C., M.D., Dayton, Ohio, Formerly Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Medical College of Ohio.

SKENE, ALEXANDER J. C., M.D., Professor of Gynæcology in the Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, and in the Post-Graduate Medical School of New York.

STELWAGON, HENRY W., M.D., Physician to the Philadelphia Dispensary for Skin Diseases; Chief of the Skin Dispensary of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

STRAWBRIDGE, GEORGE, M.D., Clinical Professor of Otology in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

THOMAS, T. GAILLARD, M.D., Clinical Professor of Diseases of Women in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York; Surgeon to the New York State Woman's Hospital.

TYSON, JAMES, A.M., M.D., Professor of General Pathology and Morbid Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania; Physician to the Philadelphia Hospital, Philadelphia.

WILSON, JAMES C., A.M., M.D., Physician to the Philadelphia Hospital, and to the Hospital of the Jefferson College; President of the Pathological Society of Philadelphia.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIGURE PAGE 1. THE CLASSICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PELVIC ORGANS . . . . . . 148

2. THE CORRECT REPRESENTATION OF THE PELVIC ORGANS . . . . . . . 149

3. FIRST DEGREE OF PROLAPSE OF THE POST-PARTUM UTERUS . . . . . . 155

4. SHOWING EXTREME DESCENT OF THE UTERUS AND OF THE PELVIC FLOOR, AND THE HERNIAL CHARACTER OF THE LESION . . . . . . . . . . 156

5. DESCENT OF THE VIRGIN UTERUS INTO THE VAGINAL CANAL, SHOWING THE REDUPLICATED VAGINAL WALLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

6. DESCENT OF THE UTERUS, SHOWING EXCESSIVE CIRCULAR ENLARGEMENT OF THE LACERATED CERVIX, CONSEQUENT UPON REDUPLICATION OF THE VAGINAL WALLS AND OUT-ROLLING OF INTRACERVICAL TISSUES . 158

7. THE EMMET CURVES (PESSARY) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

8. THE ALBERT SMITH CURVES (PESSARY) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

9. THE FIRST SUTURE BEFORE TWISTING IN EMMET'S OPERATION IN PROCIDENTIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

10. FOLDS ON THE ANTERIOR VAGINAL WALL FORMED AFTER TWISTING THE FIRST SUTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

11. EMMET'S OPERATION FOR PROCIDENTIA AND URETHROCELE COMPLETED . 163

12. DIAGRAM OF EMMET'S OPERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

13. THE SUTURES IN PLACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

14. THE VAGINAL SUTURES TWISTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

15. EXTREME RETROFLEXION, WITH HYPERTROPHY OF THE CORPUS . . . . . 167

16. COMMENCING REPOSITION OF THE RETROVERTED OR RETROFLEXED UTERUS BY CONJOINED MANIPULATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

17. COMPLETED REPOSITION OF THE RETROVERTED OR RETROFLEXED UTERUS BY CONJOINED MANIPULATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

18. SHOWING THE PELVIC ORGANS SUSTAINED BY THE EMMET PESSARY AFTER REPOSITION OF THE PROLAPSED, RETROVERTED, OR RETROFLEXED UTERUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

19. SCHULTZE'S SLEIGH PESSARY IN PLACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

20. FRONT VIEW OF SCHULTZE'S FIGURE-OF-EIGHT PESSARY . . . . . . . 174

21. THOMAS'S RETROFLEXION PESSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

22. PATHOLOGICAL ANTEVERSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

23. CONGENITAL ANTEFLEXION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

24. ANTEFLEXION WITH POST-UTERINE FIXATION . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

25. DIAGRAM SHOWING MUSCULAR STRATA OF UTERUS, AS DIVIDED FOR CLINICAL PURPOSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

26. IMPERFORATE HYMEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

27. SIMS'S VAGINAL DILATOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

28. FOLLICULAR VULVITIS (HUGINER) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

29. ABSCESS OF GLANDS OF BARTHOLINI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

30. ELEPHANTIASIS OF VULVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

31. ELEPHANTIASIS OF VULVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

32. DEFORMITY OF HAND IN PROGRESSIVE MUSCULAR ATROPHY . . . . . . 548

33. SHOWING ATROPHY OF THE RIGHT DELTOID AND ARM, AND OF THE LEFT ARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

34. SHOWING ATROPHY OF THE DELTOID, POSTERIOR ASPECT, AND OF THE SCAPULAR MUSCLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

{17}

DISEASES OF THE GENITO-URINARY SYSTEM.

{19}

DISEASES OF THE KIDNEYS, INCLUDING THE PELVIS OF THE KIDNEYS.

BY ROBERT T. EDES, M.D.

Anomalies of Shape, Size, Number, and Position.

The kidneys are two glandular organs, of a concavo-convex shape so characteristic as to be frequently used as a term of comparison, situated on each side of the vertebral column, with the longer diameters nearly parallel thereto, but slightly convergent toward the upper extremity, and extending from about the upper border of the eleventh rib on the left side and the middle of the corresponding rib on the right to the second or third lumbar vertebra. Hence they are somewhat less than half covered by the last two ribs.

The upper extremity is a little the wider and the thinner, and by this peculiarity and a recollection of the position of the vessels (from the front, vein, artery, ureter) the two kidneys may be assigned to their proper sides after removal from the body.

They are behind, and at their upper extremities nearly in contact with, the peritoneum, resting, with their more or less voluminous envelope of adipose tissue, upon the great muscles of the loins. The fat which in the normal condition surrounds the kidneys varies, as might be supposed, within wide limits, and is by no means devoid of importance, since its deficiency is undoubtedly a predisposing cause for some of the displacements hereafter to be described. In this fatty mass may also be situated perinephritic abscesses, and into it spread with considerable facility morbid growths originating in the kidney itself.

At the middle of the inner borders of the kidneys are situated the hiluses into which enter veins, arteries, ureters, nerves, and lymphatics, united by connective tissue and forming a sort of pedicle.

The normal weight of each kidney is to be expressed by a rough average as from four and a quarter avoirdupois ounces, or one hundred and twenty grammes, on the one hand, to seven ounces, or two hundred grammes, on the other; but since a deficiency in the size of one is not unfrequently compensated by an increase in the other, it would be safer to give the weight of the pair as from two hundred and forty to four hundred grammes, the lesser number representing those organs which are not only small but anæmic, and the larger those which are either distinctly hypertrophied or much congested: many diseased kidneys will also be found within these limits.

The size of the kidney is in a general way proportioned to the size of {20} the body: the proportion is stated as 1 to about 240. A disproportionate change in the size of both kidneys without any change in structure is a true hypertrophy, and may be met with in persons whose habits as regards the ingestion of fluids (especially such as are freely secreted by the kidneys--for instance, beer or other forms of dilute alcohol) tend toward excess, or where a disease like diabetes throws a large amount of diuretic material into the circulation.

The deep position of the kidneys makes them usually inaccessible to physical exploration to any practical extent. In stout persons they are so entirely covered by their own immediate envelope of fat, by the adipose tissue of the mesentery, and by the thick abdominal walls as to be completely indistinguishable. In thinner persons deep palpation with both hands may enable us to say that there is a diminished resistance to pressure, as in the case of movable kidney, or that there is or is not any decided enlargement. Slighter changes in size cannot be accurately determined, although Bartels[1] states that he was once enabled to detect a considerable enlargement in a case of parenchymatous nephritis by double palpation. In moderately thin persons the lower end of the kidney can be more or less distinctly felt.

[Footnote 1: Ziemssen, vol. xv.]

A position upon the hands and knees (not the gynecological semi-prone position), allowing the whole abdomen to gravitate directly away from the backbone, is said to afford, by the varying concavity of the lumbar region on the two sides, information as to the absence of either kidney from its usual place. When the kidney, however, is displaced, and when it comes decidedly forward from increase in its own size or from the pressure of a tumor behind it, it may very often become extremely accessible.

Percussion gives even less information than palpation, since the dulness of the lumbar muscles extends laterally beyond that of the kidneys, and is of itself so complete as to offer no change from the addition or subtraction of the resistance of the underlying organ.[2]

[Footnote 2: It is probable that Simon's method of thrusting the hand into the rectum and large intestine might be made available by a person with a small hand and arm for diagnosis in doubtful cases where the value of the information to be obtained would be sufficient to compensate for the risk of serious injury.

The removal of the kidneys may be accomplished through the rectum--and has been effected many times by myself and assistants--in cases where a complete autopsy is refused. The manoeuvre is not very difficult through a large and especially a female pelvis, but under other circumstances may be somewhat fatiguing. Considerable post-mortem information in regard to other organs may be obtained in the same way.]

The most marked anomaly in the shape of the kidneys when both are present, and the only one which possesses a clinical interest, is that known as the horseshoe kidney, being a more or less complete fusion of the organs of each side in front of the vertebral column and the great vessels. This fusion is usually at the lower end, but may be in the middle or at the upper end. Sometimes there is a portion lying directly in front of the vertebral column so large and thick as to appear almost like a middle lobe or a third kidney. In a few rare instances this portion has formed a pulsating enlargement mistaken for an aortic aneurism or other abdominal tumor. In others compression of the great vessels has given rise to phlebitis, or the abnormal position of the ureters has obstructed the passage of the urine, with the results, as regards the secondary affection of the kidneys, to be described below. {21} These instances are, however, among the curiosities of medicine, and no rule for their diagnosis can be laid down. A horseshoe kidney is usually discovered only after death, and with no special frequency in cases of renal disease.

Variations in the number of the kidneys possess this point of practical interest, that diseases affecting a single organ are more dangerous than if another exists which can take upon itself extra duty. Apparent absence of one kidney may be due to atrophy, attended with very small size of the renal vessels; in which case a small mass of connective tissue is found at the upper end of the ureter, which is usually illy developed. The other kidney is usually hypertrophied.

The kidney may fail to be developed. In this case there are no vessels corresponding to the renal artery and vein, and the ureter is stated to be invariably absent, but the writer has seen a specimen where the left ureter terminated superiorly in a rounded cul-de-sac, no kidney or suprarenal capsule being present. The other kidney was of rather large size in proportion to the size of the patient, but of the usual form. This defect is apt to be associated with some anomaly of the genital organs.

Another condition, apparently similar, but really due to a fusion of the two embryonic kidneys, is sometimes found. In this the single organ, situated upon one side, is irregular in form and in the number and origin of its vessels. There are usually two ureters, arising one above or beside the other, and directed to their proper positions in the floor of the bladder. A single ureter arising from a single kidney has been seen to empty upon the opposite side of the bladder.

Supernumerary kidneys have been noted. In one case an extra pair, situated below the others, were intensely inflamed, while the normal organs were not so.

A position of one kidney has been noticed considerably higher than normal, so as to push the spleen from its place. A more common anomaly, however, is the situation of one kidney at a point much below the usual, most commonly at the brim of the pelvis. When this happens the kidney itself is usually more or less distorted in form, and receives its blood-supply from several small arteries which enter it at irregular points, forming as it were several small hiluses. They may originate from the aorta or from one or both iliacs. The ureter is correspondingly short. This position is of some importance, since a pelvic tumor is formed which has in one instance proved an obstacle in childbirth, while in another the misplaced kidney itself underwent an acute nephritis from the pressure of the foetal head. The kidney tumor has in a few instances been felt in this position during life, but its nature has not been diagnosticated.

Floating Kidney.

The most clinically important change in the position of the kidney is not a permanent one, but varies from time to time with the posture of the patient and the altered conditions of pressure--externally by dress or apparatus, or internally by the other abdominal organs. It is known as floating or wandering kidney. In this affection the kidney ceases to {22} be firmly imbedded in the fat usually found in the lumbar region, constituting a support and packing for these organs as well as for the suprarenal capsules, and is allowed more or less liberty of movement, which is restrained by a pedicle consisting of the ureter, vessels, and nerves, with more or less connective tissue. As it passes downward and forward it comes into more intimate relations with the peritoneum, which usually covers only the anterior surface, often with an intervening layer of fat, so that it may even gain a sort of special investment or meso-nephron.

The extent of the excursions of which the tumor thus formed is capable must naturally vary considerably. Sometimes the organ can be pushed or make its own way forward so as to come into contact with the anterior abdominal wall on the same side, and not much lower than the normal position, or it may pass considerably downward, and thus be confounded with tumors arising from the pelvis.

This affection is much more frequent among women than in men, and the right kidney is more frequently movable than the left: both, however, are sometimes dislocated. It is observed in a much larger proportion of cases in the laboring classes than in those whose work is less severe and carried on in less constrained attitudes. Judging from the relative amount of the literature of the subject, it would appear to be much less frequently observed in this country than among the lower classes of Germany, where so large a proportion of the severest outdoor labor is carried on by women.

Various causes are assigned for this displacement. It is stated to be usually congenital, but is not described as found post-mortem in children with at all the frequency that it occurs in adults; and it is certainly possible in adults to fix in many cases the beginning of the disease with a reasonable degree of certainty. That a certain amount of predisposition, or peculiarly favorable position of the kidney, or an unusual laxity of connective tissue, exists in a certain number of cases is undoubtedly true.

The next most important factor is undoubtedly a laxity of the abdominal walls, affording a less firm and unyielding support to the contained viscera, and a deficiency, usually an acquired one, of the fat surrounding the kidney, which enables it in the normal condition to be supported by the layer of peritoneum passing across its front from the spinal column to the flank. This is seen in a certain set of cases where the trouble dates from an acute disease or a rapid emaciation. The well-known influence of repeated pregnancies is undoubtedly exerted in this way.

Another set, especially those exceptional cases which occur in strongly-built and not thin persons, are referable to severe shocks received in gymnastic exercises, hard riding, or falls from a horse.

One of the most frequent causes, and one which accounts for the fact of the affection being most prevalent among the working classes, is the use of a tight strap or cord to support the garments. Corsets, which exercise a more even pressure over a larger surface, do not have this effect. The right kidney, from the position of its superior extremity in front of the liver and its slightly higher place in the abdomen, appears to be more influenced by this pressure than the left. The movements of respiration, especially when reinforced by the forced inspiration and {23} compression of the abdominal viscera accompanying violent exertion, appear to assist in the dislodgment already favored by the pressure of the girdle.

According to Müller Warnek,[3] who has laid especial stress on this method of causation, a slighter degree of displacement is possible in this way without or preceding the full development of wandering kidney. A pressure is exercised upon the descending duodenum with which the right kidney is brought into intimate relations behind, and bound down by, the peritoneum; which leads, as Bartels supposes, to a hindrance in the passage of food from the stomach, and consequent dyspeptic phenomena. In these cases, when the kidney has become a more freely movable one and has dropped farther down in the abdominal cavity, the pressure on the duodenum ceases, the consequent symptoms disappear, and give place to the dragging sensations and severe colicky attacks which are apt to characterize an older case.

[Footnote 3: Berl. klin. Woch., 1877, 38.]

SYMPTOMATOLOGY.--There is great variety in the kind and amount of effect which the movable kidney exercises on the general organism and the local effects it produces. Neither the local nor the general symptoms are necessarily proportionate in severity to the amount of the displacement.

It may be said in advance that, contrary to what might be expected, the symptoms are not usually connected with any disturbance in the urinary function, and, although exceptions are not unknown, the rule is for a displaced kidney to be an otherwise healthy one. Cystitis and uterine affections have been observed in this connection, but it is doubtful if any relation other than coincidence or a mutual dependence upon impaired general nutrition and overwork exists between them. The partial stoppages which might be supposed to arise from the twisting of the ureters are not frequently observed.

Hysteria and hypochondriasis have been frequently attributed to this lesion, and might undoubtedly find their exciting cause in anxiety about a tumor of unknown character and origin; but there seems no good reason to connect them in any other relation of causation. It is undoubtedly true that many pains and discomforts exist in these cases which are neither satisfactorily explained nor gotten rid of by being called hysterical. These abdominal pains, especially of a dragging character, and also the sensation as of something falling or moving about in the abdomen, particularly when the patient assumes the upright posture or makes unusual exertions, are very naturally connected with the existence of the actual condition which is likely to give rise to them. Müller Warnek has recorded the frequent coincidence of flatulent dyspepsia and dilatation of the stomach depending on retention, and its consequent fermentation, in connection with the movable kidney and its supposed pressure on the duodenum. It is not probable, however, that all the symptoms are to be explained so simply, but it is quite as likely that the dragging and tension of the pedicle may have a remoter effect through the renal and sympathetic nerves.

Severer attacks occasionally occur with violent colic and inflammatory symptoms, the tumor formed by the misplaced organ becoming exceedingly sensitive to pressure. These have been attributed to some {24} incarceration, but there is no evidence that this accident occurs, and it has not been found after death. They are probably due to a localized peritonitis of the investment of the kidney, or perhaps to simple neuralgia. Icterus and hepatitis, consequent upon a circumscribed peritonitis set up by the pressure of the movable kidney upon the liver, have been observed.

Death is not one of the usual results of this affection, but a recent surgical writer (Keppler[4]) has called attention to cases where long-continued dyspeptic symptoms, with constant pain and the chagrin and melancholy due to inability to work, have been followed by death from exhaustion, and nothing except a movable kidney has been found at the autopsy.

[Footnote 4: Arch. für Klin. Chirurg., 1879.]

There can be no doubt that in many cases the symptoms are more severe than might be supposed from the ordinary descriptions, and are very unfairly characterized as hysterical. On the other hand, many cases are attended with but the mildest form of the symptoms just described, and the patients, ignorant of any tumor either from its discomfort or from having felt it, live in health and comfort for many years.

DIAGNOSIS.--The diagnosis of this condition, if the physician keeps in mind the possibility of its occurrence, is usually not difficult. In many cases a tumor has been felt by the patient which when called to the attention of the physician is recognized by its shape. In some cases in thin persons the form of the kidney, even to its hilus with the strongly-beating artery, can be made out. It glides easily from between the fingers, and can be moved more or less remotely from its normal position, to which, however, it returns without difficulty, especially when the patient assumes the recumbent position. The excursions are of course limited to a certain length of radius, of which the origin of the renal vessels is the centre, and seldom go much beyond the median line toward the side opposite to that on which the movable organ belongs.

The usual statement of text-books, that a depression or lessened resistance is to be felt in the loins of the side from which the kidney is absent, and a diminution of the normal dulness, which returns again when the organ is replaced, rests, as regards the majority of cases, rather upon theoretical considerations than on actual observation. The thickness of the lumbar muscles, upon which the kidney rests, is such that the dulness on percussion is not capable of much change. In most persons the outer limit of dulness in this region is not that of the outer edge of the kidney, but of the extensor dorsi communis. Palpation and percussion therefore in the renal region are not likely to be of much value in diagnosis, although an occasional case appears to justify the ordinary statement. The hand-and-knee position described above would be more likely than any other to show an existing depression.

Palpation for the purpose of finding the tumor, if it be not at once evident, or for examining it after it is found, should be bimanual, one hand being placed in the space between the ribs and the crest of the ilium of the supine patient and pressed strongly upward, while the surface rather than the points of the fingers of the other hand should be carried and pressed with some firmness into the relaxed abdominal parietes. In this way the kidney may be caught between the two hands and examined more or less completely according to the thickness of the abdominal walls. Sometimes the kidney can be partly grasped between the {25} finger and thumb of one hand. In this way the size, shape, and sensitiveness of the tumor can be determined, as well as its position and movability.

A movable kidney may of course present some difficulties of diagnosis from other abdominal tumors. The liver is sometimes, though very rarely, movable, and never to the same extent as a wandering kidney, and as it is pushed downward discloses its much greater bulk. The base of the gall-bladder may occasionally be quite movable, but its excursions are of a more limited radius, being of course executed only by the base and not the whole organ.

The spleen, when it descends so as to be distinctly felt below the ribs, is much less movable, and if it descends deeply without great enlargement, its absence from its proper place is demonstrable by percussion. The splenic tumor is also larger, firmer, and more closely applied to the abdominal walls than the floating kidney. The left kidney, it should be remembered, is less frequently movable than the right.

A small ovarian tumor might be mistaken for a movable kidney low down in the abdomen, or vice versâ. The latter error has actually been committed, and has led to an attempted removal of the supposed cyst. The more easy movability of the kidney upward and of the ovary downward or laterally, as well as the shape, and in many cases the result of a vaginal examination, should be sufficient to make the distinction, which, if an exact diagnosis be absolutely necessary, may be confirmed by aspiratory puncture.

A malignant omental tumor might at the first examination present points of difficulty in diagnosis, but even if it were single and counterfeited with considerable accuracy the shape of the kidney, neither of these conditions would be likely to continue for any length of time.

TREATMENT.--The treatment usually suggested for this affection is based partly on the fact that many cases are hysterical, and also on that other more important one, that very little can be done to restrain the vagaries of the offending organ.

A correct diagnosis, it has been frequently remarked, is often sufficient to relieve the patient's mind, and secondarily her body, and may be all that is necessary in cases where the symptoms are all psychical and have arisen from the discovery of a tumor of unknown nature.

As a relief from the more serious annoyances the avoidance of certain disturbing causes may be of value, and such will consist in a proper regulation of the bowels and consequent avoidance of straining, and the choice of an occupation as little laborious and involving as little work in the upright posture as possible. No tight, narrow girdle should be worn about the upper part of the abdomen.

On the other hand, the use of a tight bandage over the whole abdomen is usually recommended, and seems to be useful in a small proportion of cases. It can of course act only by rendering the whole abdomen a little more tightly packed, and cannot exercise much restraint on any special portion of its contents. Pads of various shapes worn under the bandage may bring a little more local pressure to bear. One shaped like a carpenter's square, with an ascending branch to check the lateral movements, and a horizontal one to prevent the descent of the tumor, has been proposed. A truss with pads adapted to the loins and a front pad over the kidney has also been used.

{26} It is impossible to read the history of many cases of this affection without becoming convinced that while the majority need but the mental assurance of the harmlessness of the tumor to restore their mental equilibrium, and others find their troubles bearable or capable of relief by mechanical appliances, no inconsiderable number are incapacitated from labor and the enjoyment of life by the necessity for great care in their movements, or suffer from severe symptoms, as pain and dyspepsia, which demand a more active treatment.

This has been afforded by operative surgery in two ways. Of these the most obvious is removal of the offending organ. It has now been clearly shown, by the number of nephrectomies that have been performed, that one healthy kidney is sufficient to support the function of urinary elimination; and if one kidney can be clearly shown to be healthy, the other can be safely removed. Such an operation undoubtedly adds to a patient's risks, since any subsequent renal affection is likely to prove fatal; but it has been now done a considerable number of times for the relief of the affection in question, and with good results. R. P. Harris[5] has collected 16 cases with 10 recoveries, the organ removed in 3 out of the 6 fatal cases being diseased. Only 2 of these operations were by the lumbar incision, both being saved. They have since been reported.

[Footnote 5: Am. Journ. Med. Sci., July, 1882.]

The operation has usually been done by the abdominal incision, which offers the advantages of greater accessibility of the pedicle for the purpose of ligating the arteries, and also greater ease in getting at the kidney itself, since it has often formed a partly separate pouch in the peritoneum, from which it would not be so easy to dislodge it by the lumbar incision. The latter operation is, as just stated, by no means impracticable nor specially dangerous. Of course it is desirable to avoid for some time after the operation anything which, like the use of diuretics or the excessive secretion of water, will throw any increased work upon the remaining kidney until it has had time to accommodate itself to them.

A singular case of attempted excision of a tumor supposed to be a wandering kidney, which could not be found after the incision was made, is recorded.[6] In this case the symptoms, which, as well as the physical signs, had pointed distinctly to a movable kidney, disappeared after the operation. The author compares this case to another, in which great relief was experienced from a pretended operation for the removal of normal ovaries.

[Footnote 6: Hygeia, 11, 12, 1880, Svensson.]

The other operation consists in the fixation of the movable organ. In one case a curved needle bearing a strong tape ligature was passed into the abdominal muscles, through the kidney, and out again. The ligature remained for some time, giving a certain amount of relief from the distressing symptoms, but maintaining a constant discharge until it came away without having accomplished any permanent benefit. The kidney was afterward removed by a lumbar incision, and a deep cicatrix found running longitudinally along the otherwise healthy organ.[7]

[Footnote 7: A. W. Smyth, New Orleans Med. and Surg. Journal, Aug., 1879.]

In other cases[8] a dissection has been made until the kidney was reached, which was then, with its adipose capsule, stitched firmly into {27} the wound. In one of these cases the kidney became somewhat loosened again, but it is possible that the risk of this accident might be avoided by some modification in the operative procedure. If this operation can be made a successful one, and generally accepted, of which as yet the paucity of cases hardly permits us to judge, it is manifestly far preferable to removal, since it leaves in its place an organ usually perfectly capable of performing its functions.

[Footnote 8: Hahn, "Fixation of Movable Kidney," Am. Journ. of Med. Sci., April, 1882, from Cbl. für Chirurgie, 1881.]

Polyuria; Diabetes Insipidus.

Polyuria is the name of a symptom the presence of which may be easily ascertained beyond a doubt, but which is notwithstanding occasionally overlooked. Its existence is to be determined by measuring the urine. In extreme cases this may be unnecessary, but slighter forms may easily escape notice if this is not done. The quantity of urine normally secreted varies considerably, owing to many causes, of which the principal are--the quantity of fluid ingested, not necessarily in the form of beverages, but of food more or less succulent; the activity of the other secretions, especially those of the skin and the intestines, and the presence of substances which increase the rapidity of its flow through the kidney or stimulate the glandular cells; and, to a certain extent also, individual peculiarities.

The quantity of water furnished by the kidneys depends largely upon the excess of pressure in the vessels, and especially in the Malpighian coils, over that in the interior of the tubes, and is consequently influenced by the general blood-tension.

The second factor of importance is the calibre of the renal vessels, especially the arterioles; and the third, the freedom of exit of the formed secretion from the uriniferous tubes. A certain amount of back pressure, so far from diminishing the amount of urine, seems to increase it, as shown in some of the cases of surgical polyuria, where the normal amount is considerably exceeded, while the renal parenchyma is being gradually destroyed.

The arterioles of the kidney being, like all other arterioles in the body, under the control of the nervous system through the vaso-motor nerves, it is easy to see how the various affections of this controlling element may act upon the secretion of urine; neither is it possible to deny (although by far the most important factor in the rapidity of the urinary secretion has been shown to be the blood-pressure) that the nervous system may have a direct effect upon the secreting renal parenchyma.

The normal quantity of urine for an adult of medium height and weight and ordinary habits as regards the ingestion of liquids may be stated as fifty fluidounces, or a liter and a half, which is of course to be considered as only a very rough approximation. One liter on the one hand, and two liters on the other, can hardly be considered pathological limits, unless the increase or decrease takes place under circumstances which ought to produce the opposite effect.

Frequency of micturition, especially if nocturnal, is often considered almost a proof of polyuria, but can at most only justify a presumption of it, which is to be confirmed or not by exact measurement. Any {28} existing polyuria is likely to be greater during the night. Frequency of micturition may mean polyuria, or, on the contrary, may coexist with a considerably diminished total amount of urine; in which case it means only increased irritability of the bladder, and is then a purely nervous symptom; assuming, of course, the absence of inflammatory trouble. The rapidity with which the secretion accumulates in the bladder has a certain influence in determining the need for micturition; that is, a bladder containing five ounces of urine which has been gradually accumulating for some hours retains it with greater ease than if the same amount had been rapidly secreted, as, for instance, after a full meal with an abundant supply of fluids.

Polyuria is often, or always if persistent, an important symptom, and the suggestions made by it can easily be added to and confirmed by a more minute examination of the urine. Thus we may have the following combinations indicating important diseases:

Polyuria, moderate, with diminished specific gravity, albumen usually in small amount, and some casts; in chronic interstitial nephritis;

Polyuria, with pus and mucus and débris from the urinary passages, usually turbid and often alkaline and offensive; in irritation of the kidneys depending on lesions of the deeper urinary passages, prostate, or bladder (surgical polyuria);

Polyuria, with increase of urea (azoturia);

Polyuria, with increase of phosphates (phosphaturia);

Polyuria, with increased specific gravity and sugar; in diabetes mellitus;

Polyuria, with decreased specific gravity and diminished or normal solids; in diabetes insipidus.

These conditions have many points of mutual contact and resemblance, but the affection which is the subject of the present essay is diabetes insipidus--i.e. that form of polyuria which is accompanied by no abnormal constituents except occasionally inosite, a very little sugar, or a very small amount of albumen. In the cases where these constituents might lead to difficulties in the way of diagnosis the absence of other symptoms of the disease likely to be mistaken will suffice to mark off the affection as entirely distinct.

The normal elements may be decreased, normal, or increased. The disease thus defined includes not only diabetes insipidus, but many cases of so-called phosphaturia and azoturia, which, if not exactly coinciding, have many points in common.

In some cases which, from the character of the urine as well as from the other symptoms, should evidently be classed as diabetes insipidus, the quantity of urine, although somewhat increased, is not very excessive, reaching perhaps two liters, but in the great majority is discharged in much larger quantity. In a case which came under the observation of the writer by the kindness of H. E. Marion the amount of urine gradually rose from two or three gallons to five or six and seven, and on one occasion the patient, a girl of fifteen, after some unusual excitement is supposed to have passed eight gallons in the course of twenty-four hours. Of this eleven quarts was by actual measurement, and passed in the presence of her mother in the course of the afternoon.

The urine in these cases is, as would naturally be supposed, of a very {29} pale color and of low specific gravity, which from 1005 to 1010, representing the usual range, may in extreme cases fall to or even below 1001 as measured by the ordinary urinometer. I have seen no case recorded where the specific gravity of such a urine has been determined by instruments of greater delicacy. Its odor is comparatively faint, but it is somewhat prone to decomposition. The solid constituents are often somewhat increased in the twenty-four hours, especially the urea, which may be present in double the usual amount. This is probably the result of an increased metamorphosis from the passage of so large an amount of water through the tissues.

It is not always true, however, that the solids are increased, and the difference in the amount of destructive metamorphosis taking place in different cases is probably closely connected with the clinical differences which may be observed in regard to the amount of wasting and affection of the general health. The phosphates are frequently increased, as found by Dickenson and Teissier; and such an increase has probably about the same meaning as the increase in urea. In other cases, however, they take part in the general diminution of solids, as in the case of Marion just alluded to, where they were reported as absent, which undoubtedly means simply present in so small amount as to escape the usual clinical tests.

Among the concomitant symptoms the most necessarily and closely connected with the increased discharge of fluid is its increased ingestion, so that the disease has been called polydipsia instead of polyuria, it being assumed that the thirst is the initial and important symptom upon which the diuresis naturally depends. It has been observed in many cases, however, that the quantity of water drunk is very much below that which is passed. In the case last spoken of the water ingested in the form of drink was but a small fraction of the quantity of the urine, so that the patient drank but two or three pints while passing many gallons. In cases where the beginning of the disease has been carefully observed patients have distinctly stated that the increased discharge began before they felt increased thirst. This of course takes no account of the quantity of water contained in solid or semi-solid food. Polyphagia is occasionally seen, as in the oft-quoted case of Trousseau, the terror of restaurant-keepers. So intense is the craving for water that in several instances where attempts have been made to limit its amount the unfortunate patient has drained the chamber-pot. Emaciation is probably connected with increased metamorphosis, as indicated by the increased secretion of urea and phosphates. Dryness of the skin has been frequently noted, and has been said to mark the distinction between polyuria and polydipsia, in the former the skin being dry, and in the latter moist. In one case, however, where copious perspirations were noted, the patient stated positively that the polyuria began a number of days before increased thirst was experienced. In another very extreme case, attended, however, with no wasting, night-sweats occurred. Pruritus has been mentioned as affording another point in the resemblance which undoubtedly exists between the severer cases of this disease and diabetes mellitus. Dyspeptic symptoms have been noted in some cases, and oedema may take place, as in many wasting diseases.

The nervous symptoms are perhaps the most important in the severer {30} cases. In some which have been examined post-mortem distinct nervous lesions have been found, such as the remains of tubercular meningitis, tumors involving the cerebellum, and softening of the floor of the fourth ventricle; in others the patients are known to have been syphilitic.

Severe headache is a symptom of some importance, occurring in a considerable number, but not the majority, of cases. Atrophy of the optic nerve was present in two reported cases, to which the writer can add a third, where failing vision, headache, and emaciation were the principal and earliest phenomena, while at a later period the atrophy was demonstrable by the ophthalmoscope. The polyuria in this case, though marked, was not excessive, and the patient, a young man, after remaining for some years in a condition of chronic invalidism, died. Chronic interstitial nephritis had of course been suspected and sought for, but no evidence of it found beyond the symptoms already stated; neither were there any more definite cerebral symptoms.

Finally, it should be stated that a great many cases of this kind have no marked symptoms at all except the essential one, and so long as they are supplied with a sufficient amount of fluid live in comfort with their single inconvenience.

The diabète phosphatique of Teissier[9] should be cited in this connection. In only a small proportion of his cases where an excess of phosphates was noted was the quantity of the urine also increased, and in these the symptoms seem as appropriate to the polyuria as to the phosphaturia. It is worthy of note, however, that one series of his cases is connected with disease of the nervous system; another alternates or coexists, as does also diabetes insipidus, with diabetes mellitus; and his fourth class closely resembles, with the exception of the increase of phosphates (if this can be looked upon, after what has been said above of the increase of solid urinary constituents, as an exception at all), the affection last named--i.e. diabetes mellitus. In fact, many of these cases of Teissier read like what would have evidently been called, without a quantitative analysis, simply polyuria or diabetes insipidus.

[Footnote 9: Du Diabète phosphatique, par L. S. Teissier, Paris, 1877.]

According to Teissier, the presence of an excess of phosphates in the blood is sufficient to determine a polyuria. It is possible that in many cases where a polyuria accompanies phthisis, as noted in many of his cases, the symptom may be really due to actual organic (perhaps amyloid) disease of the kidney.

The COURSE AND TERMINATION naturally vary greatly with its etiology and the diseases with which it is associated. In some cases where nutrition is but little affected, and no attempt is made to check the natural appetite for water, the disease may go on for years with no essential change or impairment of the general health, as in the remarkable one quoted by Dickenson, where a French infant had at the age of three impoverished her family by her demand for water, which seems to have been an expensive luxury, and at a later period kept her husband--to whom, however, she bore eleven children--in a constant state of impecuniosity by the same depraved appetite. At the age of forty she drank in the presence of a scientific commission within ten hours fourteen quarts of water, of which she returned through her kidneys ten to their astonished gaze.

{31} When polyuria is merely a symptom of cerebral inflammation, of central tumor, of syphilis, or of phthisis, the course and prognosis will of course be that of the primary disease. It occasionally comes on during pregnancy, and in one such case it is stated to have ceased two days after delivery, and in another the secretion, uninfluenced by parturition, resumed its normal quantity when lactation was fully established.

It is very rare, if indeed it ever happens, for life to be terminated by diabetes insipidus unaccompanied by any other disease, although from its association with many and severe affections, both of the nervous system and of the kidneys, it must of course not unfrequently happen that a patient dies in, though not on account of, the polyuric state. It is strange to observe, however, as has been often before remarked, how thin a shell of renal structure will suffice to carry on not only the usual, but an excessive, flow of water.

The ORIGIN of diabetes insipidus has been found in several conditions. Greater disposition toward it exists in early life, although it is by no means confined to youth. After middle life polyuria is likely to awaken the suspicion either of chronic interstitial nephritis or of prostatic disease, or other affection of the urinary passages setting up a sympathetic irritation of the kidney. It has been found to originate during convalescence from acute diseases, with perhaps preference for meningitis. Syphilis has its share of cases, as in most other organic nervous diseases. Shocks of various kinds, including fright, sudden or prolonged immersion in cold water, the rapid ingestion of large quantities either of water or of alcoholic fluids, are undoubted potent factors. In this respect, again, we may see the resemblance between diabetes without sugar and true or saccharine diabetes. It is favored by the hysterical diathesis. A very interesting case of severe hysteria with hemianæsthesia and hemiplegia and other marked symptoms varied for a time between almost complete anuria and the most profuse discharge of over two hundred ounces per diem.

A most interesting group of cases has been recorded by Weil,[10] where out of a family of 91, 28 were polyuric. The head of the family, a polyuric, lived to the age of eighty-three, while his descendants were robust, many of them attaining a good old age. There were no anomalies of the circulation, and the persons affected were not alcoholics. Their only complaint was of a troublesome thirst, and they declined treatment.

[Footnote 10: Cbl. für die Med. Wiss., 1884, p. 263, from Virch. Arch., xcv.]

The PATHOLOGY of diabetes insipidus, so far as is positively known, may be gathered from the previous account of its etiology and symptoms. It is evidently of nervous origin in the great majority if not all cases. It is often connected with distinct lesions of the nervous system, and attended with other nervous symptoms. In some cases it occurs in connection with a well-marked hysterical diathesis. The copious flow of pale urine as a sequel to the hysterical paroxysm is well known, and the same thing often attends a severe nervous headache in either sex. It is probable that the polyuria attending lesions of the urinary passages is a reflex nervous phenomenon, since it may be present when there is no suspicion of organic renal disease.

Guyon[11] states that surgical polyuria occurs under three {32} conditions--painful excitation of the sensibility of the deeper portion of the urethra or the vesical mucous membrane; repeated attempts to urinate during the night; retention of urine more or less complete, but especially when there is distension of the bladder. Of the first cause he gives an instance in the case of a young man who had a polyuria whenever a bougie was passed beyond a urethral stricture.

[Footnote 11: Leçons cliniques sur les Maladies des Voies urinaires, Paris, 1881.]

Where, however, polyuria, especially chronic, is due to habitual over-distension, it is in the highest degree probable that it is at least partly due to structural alteration of the kidney. The well-known experiment of Bernard, by which an increased flow of urine was induced by a puncture of the floor of the fourth ventricle, and those of Eckhard on section of the splanchnic nerves, show how it is possible for nervous affections to influence the secretion of urine, though the path or paths of the influence are by no means completely made out.

One of the most noticeable points in the pathology of the more excessive cases of polyuria is the disproportion which often exists between the amount of fluid ingested and the amount discharged, the latter often exceeding the former several times. The source of the excess of water has not been satisfactorily determined, but it is evident from a careful experiment of Watson, repeated by Dickenson, that the body has under some circumstances the power of appropriating water from the atmosphere instead of discharging aqueous vapor through the lungs and skin as usual. In the experiments referred to persons affected with extreme polyuria were weighed immediately after passing water, and again after as long an interval as they were able to restrain their thirst, of course being also without food and under observation, when it was found that the weight had been increased by a number of ounces. In Dickenson's case, weighing thirty pounds more or less, where the amount of urine excreted daily was from seven to nine liters, the gain in weight at several observations was as follows: in three hours, 15½ oz.; in five hours twenty minutes, 19¾ oz.; in three and a half hours, 3¾ oz.

The DIAGNOSIS of this affection rests, in the first place, upon the determination of a permanent increase in the quantity of urine passed considerably above the normal, and, as has been already remarked, may require a measurement of the daily amount--a procedure which it is well to make a matter of routine in any cases where urinary trouble may be present. The increase being found, if it be very great it will only remain to determine whether sugar be present, which will be indicated by the specific gravity and the appropriate chemical tests. Traces of sugar are sometimes found in cases of polyuria which do not present the characteristics of saccharine diabetes, and can hardly be considered to materially affect the character of the disease.

A specific gravity decidedly above normal, with an excessive quantity of urine, is not likely to belong to anything but diabetes mellitus, though the chemical tests should never be neglected. If, however, the polyuria be only moderate, it becomes necessary to exclude surgical affections of the urinary passages, especially an enlarged prostate, often attended with retention and distended bladder. Pyelitis and hydro-nephrosis may also give rise to the same condition of over-activity of the kidneys. The appropriate surgical examinations with the sound may be necessary, but the presence of pus, bacteria, and the epithelium of the urinary passages {33} in the surgical urine, as well as its frequent alkalinity, may direct a very strong suspicion before the sound is used. The age of the patient also will be of considerable weight in this connection.

A point of real difficulty of diagnosis, and great importance for treatment and prognosis, is the distinction between simple polyuria not excessive, but attended by constitutional symptoms, such as impaired nutrition, dyspepsia, and severe headache, from chronic interstitial nephritis, which often makes its appearance with similar symptoms. Mistakes between these two affections have undoubtedly occurred, and can in many cases hardly be avoided except by reserving the diagnosis for a time.

The similarity is rendered still more deceptive by the undoubted occurrence of a trace of albumen or a hyaline cast or two in cases of nervous disturbance, without justifying a diagnosis of progressive renal disease. High arterial tension also is likely to be found in both conditions. Nothing but repeated and careful examinations of the urine and of the circulation, especially at times when the nervous symptoms are less marked, and often a considerable amount of time, can fix the diagnosis.

Hypertrophy of the heart, and even slight dropsy, will undoubtedly be extremely decisive symptoms, but are not likely to occur until after a time when the doubt no longer exists. In other cases it may be highly important to carefully exclude organic cerebral disease before making a diagnosis of simple polyuria.

It is hardly appropriate to speak of a diagnosis from azoturia or phosphaturia, since these conditions are extremely likely to exist coincidently with typical polyuria and to make a part of the same disease. It is of much importance, however, to ascertain their presence with reference to the probable effect of the disease on the nutrition.

In regard to the TREATMENT, it may be remarked, to begin with, that restriction of water, although naturally diminishing somewhat the discharge of urine, does not cure the disease, but, on the contrary, in many cases augments not only the discomfort of the patient, but tends to the dryness of the skin, dyspeptic and nervous disturbances, and emaciation. Patients may recover flesh, strength, and spirits on being allowed to drink ad libitum, even although the inconvenience of excessive urination be thereby somewhat increased. Sufficient food and drink should therefore be allowed, although a patient may be ordered to observe such moderation as will not put his powers of endurance to too severe a test.

Of the drugs proposed, nearly all have offered some prospect of success, and have been accordingly reckoned almost specifics. Opium has in some cases been found as useful in these cases as in diabetes mellitus, and probably, as in that disease, by diminishing the sensitiveness of the nervous system. Valerian and valerianate of zinc, recommended by Trousseau and apparently successful in his hands, have reckoned both failures and successes in the hands of others. Nitric acid, in the dose of from 1 to 5 drachms per diem of the dilute in a large quantity of water, is said to have been highly efficacious in one series of cases.[12] It is given until aching of the jaws and teeth, with some gingivitis, denoting its constitutional action, is produced. It was more successful than any other drug in Marion's case, although the specific symptoms were not produced, the patient being now in good health or free from {34} her trouble. Atropia from its general action in diminishing secretion has been tried, and with occasional alleged success, but with many more failures. Pilocarpine from its action on the skin might be of value in those cases where the skin is very dry, but has no very general applicability.

[Footnote 12: Kennedy, Practitioner, vol. xx. p. 95.]

The drug most frequently employed, and which can claim a larger proportion of successes than any other, is ergot in full doses, half a drachm or a drachm (2 to 4 cubic centimeters of the fluid extract) several times per diem. Its method of action is undoubtedly in the contracting effect which it exercises on the renal arterioles. In many cases it has decidedly diminished the amount of urine, and in some a permanent cure seems to have resulted.

In estimating the value of drugs in certain cases of this affection its not infrequent neurotic origin should be borne in mind, as well as the very capricious effect of supposed remedies in the hysterical diathesis. Unfortunately, many cases remain rebellious to all drugs, and can only be rendered as little uncomfortable as possible.

What has been said of treatment applies only to the well-marked cases of diabetes insipidus. Polyuria, as a symptom of other diseases or of surgical affections, is hardly likely to call for treatment other than that of the disease upon which it depends.

Albuminuria.

Albuminuria signifies a condition in which albumen appears in the urine, and has by some writers been made of equal significance with nephritis or Bright's disease. It is hardly necessary to say that this coincidence is far from being an exact one, and that the symptom may exist without Bright's disease, and also Bright's disease without the symptom. For our present purposes albuminuria will be taken to mean those conditions in which albumen may be found in the urine without the existence of decided diffuse nephritis. As a symptom, and a highly important one, of Bright's disease it will be considered elsewhere.

Albumen is secreted in the kidneys chiefly in the Malpighian capsules, where, if at all abundant, it may be easily demonstrated after death by hardening the kidneys by boiling. This coagulates the albumen in situ, where it may be shown by sections prepared in the usual method. It has been supposed that albumen is normally secreted in the capsules of the healthy kidney, and afterward absorbed by the epithelium lower down; but this view can easily be shown to be erroneous by subjecting a kidney which has not secreted albuminous urine to the process just described, which shows no coagulated albumen in the place where it ought to be most abundant.

The albumen found in the urine is chiefly that which forms the most important portion of the blood-serum, although other albuminoid bodies have from time to time made their appearance and have some diagnostic importance. Semmola[13] states that the albumen appearing in the urine in true Bright's disease differs from that found with the cardiac or amyloid kidney. The distinction can, according to him, be shown in {35} the appearance of the precipitate to a practised observer, and also by a more rapid diffusibility through animal membranes. He admits, however, that he has in vain sought for any distinct and clear chemical test by which the difference can be recognized.

[Footnote 13: Archives de Physiologie, 2d Serie, tome ix., and 3d Serie, tome iv.]

Fibrin may occur in inflammatory conditions in the form of coagulated masses, and hence cannot affect the question of the presence of albumen. Casein has not been detected with certainty. Various albuminoid bodies, called albuminose, paralbumen, metalbumen, and serum-globulin, are occasionally met with in renal disease, and may give rise to some confusion during an analysis. They are at present, however, more suitable for chemical than for clinical study.

A variety of albumen is said to occur in osteomalacia which is not coagulated by heat alone nor by heat and nitric acid. This has been called Bence Jones's albumen, but has been seen by others. Peptone has been found in urine, but usually in such specimens as have been or which afterward become albuminous. Its exact signification when alone cannot be more exactly stated, as it has appeared in a variety of diseases, though not in perfect health.

Finally, a protein body, a ferment called nephrozymase, may be thrown down from every urine by an excess of alcohol.

Hæmoglobin gives a dark-red color to the urine, which on boiling forms a brown coagulum floating on the surface.

Hæmoglobinuria may be produced in animals by the intravenous injection of large quantities of water, causing a dissolution of the corpuscles, but the degree of hydræmia necessary to produce this condition is much in excess of any met with in diseases of the human being.

Human hæmoglobinuria may be the result of various pathological conditions, among which may be mentioned some infectious diseases, jaundice, burns, and the effects of many poisons, as well as the transfusion of sheep's blood.

Intermittent hæmoglobinuria, which is attended with fever, is usually the result of cold acting upon predisposed persons. The color of the urine and of the coagulum, together with the absence of red corpuscles under the microscope, will distinguish urine of this character from others which are also coagulable by heat.

Several methods are in use for the detection of albumen. Of these, boiling is perhaps the oldest and most generally employed, and if conducted with due care is a very delicate and useful test. The urine to be tested should be clear and slightly acid, when on boiling the albumen, if present, will be precipitated in whitish flocculi, more or less abundant according to the amount, or, if the quantity is very small, as a turbidity. The flocculi soon settle to the bottom of the tube when it cools, and the thickness of the deposit formed gives an approximation to a quantitative estimate. It is to the proportionate thickness of this deposit that the terms 30 or 50 per cent. of albumen are commonly but incorrectly applied. If the quantity is very small, it may not be distinctly perceptible until after cooling.

If alkaline or very slightly acid urine is boiled, a deposit of phosphates will be thrown down which closely resembles that from albumen, while, on the other hand, the albumen remains undissolved unless in large amount. These deposits of phosphates differ a little in appearance from {36} an albuminous one, but in order to be accurate acetic or nitric acid should be added, drop by drop, to the hot urine, when the phosphates will be redissolved and the albumen, if present, precipitated. It is better, however, to add the acid cautiously to the point of slight acidity before boiling. A recent work[14] gives the following directions for this reaction, which is then "absolutely conclusive and surpassed in delicacy by no other:" "The urine is first made distinctly acid with some drops of acetic acid, and then about one-sixth of its volume of a concentrated solution of chloride of sodium or sulphate of sodium or magnesium added. If the urine contains albumen, a precipitate of coarser or finer flakes appears on boiling." This reaction may be used as a quantitative test by diluting and acidifying, if necessary, a known quantity of urine, washing the precipitate on a weighed filter, drying, and weighing the whole.

[Footnote 14: Die Lehre vom Harn, Salkowski und Leube.]

An exceedingly delicate and convenient test is that by nitric acid. The acid is placed in the bottom of a conical wine-glass, and the urine, filtered if necessary, allowed to flow on top of it from a pipette, so as to disturb the plane of junction of the two fluids as little as possible, and leave a distinct line of demarcation. At this plane of union, if albumen be present, will be formed an opaque white line varying in thickness according to the amount of albumen, so that after some practice and with care an approximate estimate of the percentage may be made. A deposit of urates may sometimes be formed a little above the plane of union, but it may be distinguished by its position, by its less distinct limitation on the upper surface, and also by its disappearance on warming. In a very concentrated urine and in cold weather this error may be conveniently avoided by previous warming of the urine and of the reagent. The same remark applies to the brine test.

A crystalline precipitate of nitrate of urea may give rise to error if the urine be very concentrated or the experiment conducted in the cold. This may be distinguished by its disappearance on warming or by the microscope. The action of the nitric acid on the coloring matter of the urine, forming a dark band at the point of junction, may obscure the reaction, but with care will not give rise to mistakes.

Another test recently introduced, which presents some advantages over the nitric acid, and is certainly quite as delicate, consists in a saturated solution of common salt in water acidulated with about 5 per cent. of the dilute hydrochloric acid of the Pharmacopoeia. This solution should be used exactly in the manner described for nitric acid. There is no change of color at the line of junction, and no precipitate takes place there except albumen or peptone, or resins when they have been administered. The opaque line of precipitate may, if the amount of albumen present be small, require a short time to form, so that in cases of doubt it is well to allow the test-glass to stand for a few minutes. It will, however, show very distinctly in any cases in which nitric acid shows any precipitate. The line does not, however, increase in thickness and density in proportion to the amount of albumen so exactly as that produced by nitric acid, so that the brine test is not so useful for approximately quantitative use as the nitric acid, although fully as delicate. If it be desired to distinguish peptone from albumen, it may be done by a comparison of this test {37} with the nitric acid, which does not throw down peptone. If a deposit occur, which may consist of resin, the addition of more urine will dissolve it if resin, while albumen will not be affected.

Picric acid is a delicate and often a convenient test. The dry acid may be dissolved in the urine, or a saturated solution used into which the urine may be slowly dropped, each drop making a slight whitish cloud as it slowly falls through the yellow solution.

The iodo-hydrargyrate of potassium is perhaps the most delicate test of all: Potassii iodidi, 3.32 gm.; Hydrarg. bichlor., 1.35 gm.; Acidi acetici, 20 c.c.; Aq. destill. q. s. ut fiat 100 c.c.--Tauret's test. It may be used in the same way as the nitric acid or brine, or simply intermixed. Its only disadvantage is that it throws down alkaloids, but as this will not happen unless the alkaloid be taken in large quantity--as might happen, for instance, in the case of quinine--the chances of error from this source are not very great if this peculiarity be borne in mind.

Ferrocyanide of potassium in an acid solution has recently been proposed as a convenient test. It may be made up into pellets with citric acid or used in the same combination in the form of papers.

The phenic-acid test is prepared as follows:

Ac. phenic. glacial. (95 per cent.), drachm ij; Ac. acet. puri., drachm vij; M. Add liq. potassæ, ounce ij-drachm vj. Millard.

This is said to be very delicate, but the writer has no experience with it.

Tungstate of sodium is another recent addition to the list, which it is evident is already long enough for practical purposes.

Several of the tests mentioned have recently been prepared in the form of papers saturated with known quantities of the reagent and dried. They may be carried in the pocket-book and applied at the bedside, if desired, in a test-tube small enough to be very conveniently carried in the vest pocket. The iodo-hydrargyrate is perhaps the most useful. It is the most delicate, and a plan has been proposed for making with it a quantitative estimate of considerable accuracy by means of a standard solution or piece of gray glass adjusted by such a solution, with which the precipitate produced can be compared as to its opacity.

Exact quantitative examinations for albumen may be made by several processes, but that by boiling, if carried out with the precautions described in works on chemistry, is as accurate as any, and probably the best adapted to the needs of the practitioner if he should wish for such results.

For clinical purposes, however, it will rarely if ever be found useful to determine the amount of albumen more accurately than can be done by the various approximations mentioned above.

When even the smallest trace of albumen is discoverable by any of these methods, the question of the integrity of the kidneys at once arises--a question which a few years ago would have been considered as settled in the unfavorable sense by the same occurrence.

It is necessary to distinguish, first of all, between an essential and an accidental albuminuria, the first referring to that condition where the albumen is secreted with the urine and forms an essential part of it, and {38} the other to the accidental admixture from the presence of pus or blood, which may have made its appearance at any point below the secreting tubes. When hemorrhage takes place from the kidney, albumen is of course present in the urine, but its signification under these circumstances is entirely different from that which it bears when unaccompanied by the corpuscular elements of the blood.

No means at present exist for determining whether a small amount of albumen present in the urine is more than enough to be accounted for by the pus or blood known to exist by the presence of its corpuscular elements or of its coloring matter. An approximate estimate may be made by one familiar with such examinations, but no rule can yet be laid down. Such a rule might be approximately established by a succession of counts with the hæmocytometer of the corpuscles found in albuminous urine of known percentage, or estimates of hæmoglobin by color tests.

The exact conditions of the kidney or of the blood which may cause the appearance in the urine of albumen without blood or pus--that is, of true albuminuria--have been the subject of much experiment and argument, which it would be impossible to reproduce, even in outline, within the limits of this article; and this is the less to be regretted since they have as yet led to no practical or generally accepted conclusion. A few of the more important facts bearing on the question may, however, be stated here.

Albumen other than serum-albumen, when introduced into the circulation either by injection into the veins subcutaneously, or if in very large quantity by the mouth, is rapidly excreted by the kidneys. This albumen also, if collected from the urine of the first animal and injected into the vein of a second, again comes through the kidneys. The albumen, however, which is obtained from the urine of an ordinary case of albuminuria--that is, serum-albumen--does not behave in this way, but is not excreted through healthy kidneys. These facts seem to show that the appearance of albumen in the urine in ordinary cases of renal disease is not to be attributed to any change in its quality approximating it to egg-albumen, for instance, but is due to the condition of the kidneys.

Disturbances of the renal circulation, especially those giving rise to venous stasis, are very likely to cause albuminuria; a temporary ligature of the renal vein causes albumen to appear in the urine after its removal, and ligature of the ureter has the same effect.

The albuminuria succeeding the collapse of Asiatic cholera or yellow fever seems to have a somewhat similar origin, being the result of re-establishment of the circulation after extreme anæmia of the kidney. Clinical facts in general seem to point to simple disturbance of the circulation and to alterations in the kidneys themselves as the usual causes of albuminuria, though in many cases the lesion seems to be a slight and temporary one.

Some other conditions under which such disturbances and alterations may arise, exclusive of Bright's disease, are the following:

Munn[15] found albumen in small quantities in 11 per cent. of cases presenting themselves for life insurance, supposing themselves healthy and having no lesions of heart or lungs. It is not stated whether casts were found in these cases or not, and their value as representing healthy {39} persons cannot, it is obvious, be correctly estimated until some time has elapsed. It is well known that renal lesions may be exceedingly slow in their progress, and it is by no means improbable that a part of these cases may have been really in the early stages of a chronic form of Bright's disease. Albumen has been found in the urine of boys and adolescents, as well as in that of healthy soldiers, tested immediately after rising: in most of these cases the amount was extremely small. Certain conditions, moreover, may greatly increase the proportion of cases in these same classes in which albumen is present. Thus, fatiguing exercise will bring it on in some persons, and the urine of a body of soldiers if examined late in the day after severe drill shows a much larger proportion of albuminurics than if examined after rising. The urine of the pedestrian Weston is said to have contained not only albumen, but casts. It is certainly not true that fatiguing exercise will cause albuminuria in everybody, and it is not claimed, even by those who report these and similar cases, that they prove albumen to be a normal constituent. Some of the cases are distinctly described as delicate without being actually ill. Cases have been reported where cold bathing has been followed by temporary albuminuria. Here it is in the highest degree probable that a disturbance in the circulation is produced by contraction of the cutaneous arterioles; and it is possible that we may find in this increased sensitiveness of certain persons an explanation of the occurrence of acute dropsy as a sequel to scarlatina or as the result of exposure in only a small proportion of the cases where the exposure takes place. It is hardly necessary to admit, on the basis of these observations, that albumen is a constituent of healthy urine, although this may be shown at some future day by still more delicate tests, but simply that the renal circulation may in certain sensitive persons be sufficiently influenced by slight and transient causes to permit albumen to pass into the urine. It is the almost unanimous conclusion of practical writers, taking fully into the account these recently-ascertained facts of albuminuria in alleged health, that the presence of albumen in the urine in sufficient quantity to be detected by any of the ordinary tests is a decidedly serious symptom.

[Footnote 15: New York Medical Record, xv. 297.]

The influence of many well-recognized pathological states in bringing about venous stasis, and that delay of the blood in the renal--and more especially the Malpighian--vessels which seems the most essential factor in the secretion of albumen, is well known, and its recognition is of much importance in diagnosis and prognosis, since the unfavorable signification of albuminuria in certain cases is liable to be overrated, and a diagnosis of chronic renal disease made to depend upon symptoms which really belong to some other affection. How far alteration in the capillaries and epithelium is in each case concerned in the production of albuminuria it is often impossible to say, since any alteration in these elements which can be observed after death is almost certain to be complicated with lesions which can disturb the local circulation.

Cardiac obstructive disease is very likely to be accompanied by albuminuria, and the state of the kidneys by which this condition is brought about is undoubtedly venous congestion. The urine in a case of this kind is usually scanty, of high specific gravity, high colored, often with a deposit of urates, while the albumen appears in small quantity. A few {40} hyaline casts are not infrequently seen, and do not materially increase the gravity of the prognosis so far as renal disease is concerned. The kidney which furnishes this urine is usually a little harder and a little denser than normal, but with a nearly normal microscopic structure, exhibiting but little more than capillaries well filled with blood, and in the interior of some of the tubes casts similar to those found in the urine during life.

Doubt may occasionally arise as to the diagnosis between a congested kidney consequent upon valvular disease of the heart and an interstitial nephritis with hypertrophy of the heart. In the latter case, however, the urine, although containing albumen, is usually much more copious and of low specific gravity. Diminished power of the heart without valvular lesion may have as a consequence albuminuria which disappears if the heart recovers its vigor.

In many of the cases in which albumen appears in the urine temporarily it is not easy to say whether an actual nephritis may not be present, though not sufficiently severe to give rise to other symptoms.

In almost any febrile disease of sufficient intensity albumen is often found, and when such a case terminates fatally without renal symptoms, the condition of the kidneys, consisting in more or less granular degeneration of the epithelium, is often spoken of as parenchymatous nephritis. If it is correctly called so, it is certainly very different from the idiopathic form, whether acute or chronic, since it is very rare for typhoid fever, for example, either to present the symptoms of acute nephritis during life or to terminate in chronic Bright's disease. In scarlatina, and rarely in other fevers, a distinct nephritis is present, but a degeneration of structure sufficient to produce albuminuria is in many instances a result merely of a high temperature.

Many applications to the skin produce albuminuria, but in almost all, if not all, of these an actual nephritis has been found to exist. The same is true of poisoning with strong acids, phosphorus, and arsenic.

A very important form of albuminuria is that found during pregnancy, more frequent with a first child or with twin pregnancy, and often associated with other symptoms of nephritis. It is probable, however, that in many instances it is a result of impeded abdominal circulation, although it is very rarely that the gravid uterus can press directly on the renal veins. In the severer cases a well-marked parenchymatous nephritis exists; but it should be distinctly borne in mind that if every instance of albuminuria in pregnancy is due to nephritis, it is certainly a form of the disease which may lead neither to severe symptoms nor to chronic disease. On the other hand, the appearance of albumen in the urine of a pregnant woman, though not necessarily calling for active interference of any kind, should always be a danger-signal, and put the physician on the lookout for other indications of actual renal disease.

In many nervous affections albumen may be found in the urine. It can be produced, as was shown long ago by Bernard, by a puncture in the floor of the fourth ventricle near to the point where a similar puncture gives rise to diabetes. Lesion of the cerebral peduncles, section, destruction, or irritation of the spinal cord, and irritation of the renal nerves are also causes of this symptom. It is by no means difficult to account for this phenomenon by the changes which take place in the {41} renal circulation under influence of the vaso-motor nerves which originate or pass through the peduncles, pons, and spinal cord, although it is highly probable that similar results might follow irritation transmitted from a distance. These facts are not without practical importance, for they give rise to very considerable chances of error in diagnosis; as, for instance, where a patient suffering from severe headache, with possibly gastric symptoms, is found to have albumen and casts in his urine, which is also copious and of low specific gravity. It might not be easy to decide that such a case was not one of interstitial nephritis with symptoms far from unusual, and yet it might perfectly well be a cerebral tumor. The diagnosis would demand a thorough search for other symptoms, such as double optic neuritis on the one hand, as indicating cerebral disease and cardiac hypertrophy, with high arterial tension on the other, as connected with nephritis. A careful consideration of the order of their occurrence is also desirable.

After an epileptic attack albumen may appear in the urine for a short time, disappearing within a few hours. This occurrence might lead to an erroneous diagnosis of uræmic convulsions if the examination happened to be made shortly after a fit and not repeated at a later period. Transitory mania may perhaps be placed in the same category.

Chronic mental disease, like general paralysis of the insane, is frequently accompanied by albuminuria, and even temporary mental disturbance in a sensitive person has been known to excite the symptom.

In narcotic poisoning both by alcohol and by opium a similar state of things sometimes occurs. With alcohol, however, distinction is to be made between chronic cases, where a suspicion of parenchymatous nephritis may be fairly entertained, and acute alcoholism or delirium tremens, where the albumen appears and disappears within a few days. In a patient profoundly under the influence of opium the urine may contain not only albumen, but casts, and the diagnosis of uræmic coma is very likely to be made if nothing is known about the history--an error which might be of great consequence, as tending to discourage the efficient treatment necessary in opium-poisoning or causing the waste of time on inefficient measures.

It is obvious from what has been said that the diagnosis of albuminuria as a symptom is sufficiently simple with a little care in chemical manipulation, but that its significance is not so easy to determine in every case, since it is found in so many cases unconnected with chronic or progressive renal disease, and on the other hand may be absent while serious nephritis is going on.

Albuminuria, as defined at the beginning of this article--that is, occurring in the absence of chronic and serious renal disease--is only to be diagnosticated by the exclusion of such diseases, by careful consideration of all the symptoms present, such as changes in the quantity and specific gravity of the urine, in the force, rhythm, and size of the heart, and of the arterial tension, as well as the relation of the amount of albumen to the amount of urine and character of the sediment as indicating one or the other form of nephritis. Thus a very small amount of albumen with a highly concentrated urine is not likely to be met with in the usual forms of nephritis, but is often found in connection with valvular disease of the heart.

{42} Treatment is but rarely directed to this symptom, since, when albumen is present in but small quantity, as usually happens, it is of little or no consequence except as an important element in diagnosis, while the few cases in which the amount is large enough to constitute a serious drain upon the system are almost exclusively cases of actual Bright's disease, and hence do not come under this head. The administration of astringents, especially tannic and gallic acids, has been found to diminish the quantity of albumen in the urine.

(A copious bibliography of this subject will be found in an article by Ellis in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. i., 1880.)

Renal Colic; Renal Calculus.

Renal colic is the appellation of a group of symptoms caused, in by far the greater proportion of cases, by the passage of a renal calculus through the ureter, or sometimes merely its engagement in the upper extremity and impaction or subsequent falling back. Other foreign bodies large enough to cause distension and obstruction, such as clots of fibrin or portions of hydatid cysts, may give rise to the same phenomena. Most physicians, however, have seen cases where the same set of symptoms have not been followed either by the discharge of the stone per urethram or by evidence of its continued sojourn anywhere in the urinary organs. They may occur in persons of a neuralgic tendency in connection with the uric or oxalic diathesis. The conclusiveness of such cases, as proving the possibility of a purely neuralgic or spasmodic attack, must of course depend upon the carefulness and intelligence of the patient and the opportunities of the physician for observation extending over years. As it is admitted, however, that these symptoms may occur without the demonstrated presence of a calculus, it would be perhaps better nomenclature to apply the term renal colic to painful and spasmodic affections of the kidney and ureter, however caused, and to describe the passage of a calculus or other obstruction under its own name.

Calculi of various kinds, sizes, and shapes may be found in the pelvis of the kidney. They are most frequently composed of uric acid, which may exist alone or with layers of phosphates superimposed. They are usually in concentric layers, more or less irregular in shape, and of a reddish-brown color of various shades. Soft concretions of urates are occasionally noted. Oxalate of lime is the material of many small calculi, and may be the nucleus of a larger one or occur in alternate layers with uric acid. These stones are of a dark grayish-brown and are exceedingly rough and irritating. Among the most frequent constituents of renal calculi are to be found phosphates, either of lime or the triple salt of ammonia and magnesia. They may form layers with other material, or constitute alone the largest and most curiously shaped of all the renal calculi. Their surface may be smooth and almost polished, or roughened, eroded, and almost crystalline in texture.

Cystine rarely forms a renal calculus, and xanthic oxide still more rarely. Masses of fibrin resulting from renal hemorrhage are described. They are said to be of the consistency of wax, tough and elastic. Coagula of the ordinary form may also give rise to the same set of symptoms. {43} On one occasion the writer saw the dilated pelvis of the kidney filled with hundreds of spherical brownish soft masses from the size of a mustard-seed to that of a pea, easily crushed in the fingers, burning with the smell of albumen, and leaving but a small amount of ash.

The size of renal calculi may vary from almost microscopic grains, which then usually take the collective name of sand or gravel, and are most commonly composed of uric acid, up to masses of some ounces in weight, completely filling a dilated pelvis.

It is doubtful in what way renal calculi originate, their constituents being always present in the urine, but rarely crystallizing out. The uric-acid infarction of new-born children can hardly be considered as accounting for any large number of cases, although it might be the basis of calculi in young children. The uric and phosphatic deposits sometimes found in the tubes of the more mature kidney may possibly, when dislodged, be a point upon which additional quantities of the same substances are deposited, but anything which delays in the pelvis or in some of its calices a concentrated urine, especially if much mucus be present, may be regarded as favoring the agglomeration of deposits. A previous pyelitis is perhaps the usual cause of phosphatic deposits. Small uric-acid calculi may sometimes be found in considerable numbers in the sulcus surrounding some of the papillæ, and of a size which could hardly afford any marked symptoms in passing down the ureter. These, if any inflammation were to arise, would form a mass with pus or mucus which might serve as a nucleus for a phosphatic calculus. These suppositions are, however, rather theoretical and fragmentary, and do not cover all the cases. Constitutional predisposition has been much discussed, though not a great deal is known about it. A gouty tendency, however, undoubtedly favors the production of uric-acid calculi.

A small renal calculus, when formed, may be the beginning of several quite different sets of phenomena. Of these, the simplest and most favorable event is its descent through the ureter into the bladder, with its subsequent expulsion with the jet of urine from the urethra. If the calculus be small and smooth, the passage through the ureter may be attended with little or no uneasiness, but if it is large enough to fill or distend the tube, and especially if the stone be irregular and rough, its descent gives rise to excessively severe symptoms. These are pain in the back at the level of the kidney, in the side and groin corresponding to the ureter affected, sometimes shooting down the thigh; with retraction of the testicle; usually no fever, but much general depression; feeble pulse, coldness and paleness of the surface, fainting, and vomiting. The beginning of the attack is usually sudden, corresponding to the entrance of the calculus into the ureter, and the pain continues without intermission, though with some remissions, until its discharge into the bladder. The pain is usually of the severest, and is described as cutting or tearing in character. It is probable that an attack may sometimes end by the calculus, which has become engaged in the ureter, falling back into the pelvis instead of advancing through the ureter. In this case the pain ceases for the time, to be perhaps subsequently renewed, or, if the stone grow larger, so that it cannot re-enter the ureter, giving place to the symptoms due to irritation of the pelvis.

The urine is usually diminished in amount until the arrival of the {44} calculus at the bladder, when the fluid that has been retained is suddenly discharged with the stone. Constant attempts to pass water during the passage downward of the calculus are the consequence of sympathetic irritation of the bladder, and not of accumulation of urine therein. The urine is likely to be bloody, but is not necessarily so. The smoothness or roughness of the surface of the stone is of much importance as determining the presence of this symptom.

The DIAGNOSIS of renal colic is usually not difficult, but it may not always be readily distinguished from hepatic or intestinal colic. The suddenness of the attack and intensity of the pain, its location in the side and downward to the groin, will in most cases make the condition very characteristic.

From hepatic colic or the passage of a gall-stone the situation of the pain, which is in the latter affection naturally somewhat farther forward, the tenderness on pressure in the same region, and often the whitish color of the stools or the presence of jaundice, as well as the history of former attacks, will usually make the distinction a matter of a high degree of probability.

Intestinal colic is usually referred to the middle of the abdomen, is accompanied by constipation, while the movements of the intestines and of flatus are often distinctly perceived by the sensation of the patient or the ears of the bystanders, and on the whole the attack is less severe and the pain less intense.

As has already been stated, it is probable that symptoms closely resembling if not identical with those of the passage of a calculus may occur when the substantial cause of them does not make its appearance; and although many of these may perhaps be accounted for by the ill-success of the search or by the calculus having ceased to pursue its downward course and having become quiescent in the kidney, yet it is well for the practitioner to be prepared for an occasional disappointment in obtaining tangible proof of the nature of the attack. Time may be required to decide whether an attack is due to calculus, or is simply one of the spasmodic or neuralgic paroxysms mentioned above.

If after careful watching no stone makes its appearance, and on the other hand the pain does not continue and no pus gives evidence of pyelitis, it is highly probable that no stone is or has been present.

A true neuralgia of the kidney may undoubtedly exist. Lumbago and lumbar neuralgia may simulate renal colic, but are almost always much less severe, the pain less sharp and more dull and aching, aggravated by movement, while the sympathetic phenomena, especially those connected with the urinary apparatus, are wanting.

The diagnosis of the character of the calculus can sometimes be made with a reasonable degree of probability. If crystals of uric acid or of oxalate of lime have been or are present in considerable quantity, it is highly probable that a possible stone may consist of those substances. These crystals, however, are of little value in proving the presence of a stone.

The important diagnosis of the occlusion of a ureter by a calculus, and at the same time that of the soundness of the opposite kidney, may be made with great certainty if the urine, which has previously been purulent, bloody, or containing renal epithelium or casts, suddenly becomes {45} clear coincidently with the occurrence of symptoms of the impaction of a stone.

It is not of course necessary that in every case of impaction the flow of urine from the affected side should be entirely stopped, since the calculus may be of such a shape as to permit the passage of urine past it.

The PROGNOSIS in this affection is extremely favorable, so far as the recovery from the individual attack is concerned, since if the stone is small enough to enter the ureter it will probably be successful in forcing its way through sooner or later. It is of course possible that this pain, like any other of excessive severity, might cause death, but such an occurrence must be extremely rare.

Perforation of the ureter may occur, with consequent peritonitis. A permanent plugging of the ureter from failure of the calculus to pass will give rise to changes in the kidney to be subsequently described.

In cases where only a single kidney exists, and this becomes obstructed, the symptoms of suppression of the urine may come on, including death by coma if the obstruction is not relieved. Ten days is the limit assigned by Ebstein beyond which recovery is not to be expected, but he mentions a case in which it took place after thirteen days of anuria. It must be remembered that a painful obstruction, or in fact any severe shock to one kidney, may produce a very great diminution in the amount of urine even when the other is sound. This is undoubtedly the result of nervous sympathy.

One attack of renal colic renders another very probable, either immediately or after months or years. Several hundred small calculi may follow each other in rapid succession, or, on the other hand, a single one may leave the patient in peace for a long time. Much depends on the character of the calculus, the diathesis and habits of the patient, and upon the treatment.

The subsequent history of the renal calculus belongs to surgery. After it has reached the bladder and failed to be discharged, it increases in size and is removed by lithotomy or lithotrity. The urethra, however, will usually permit to pass any stone which has come through the ureter. The patient who has just experienced relief from renal colic should be instructed to pass his water into a vessel which can be examined, and if the calculus do not soon make its appearance he should void the urine when stooping forward or even lying on his face, so as to bring the stone to the orifice of the urethra. It may catch in the urethra and demand surgical interference.

The TREATMENT of the paroxysm consists chiefly in relieving the pain, which may be partly done by the hot bath or hot applications. Opium, or preferably morphine subcutaneously, is likely to be called for in large doses. Attention has been called to the danger of morphine in sufficient dose to relieve severe pain in cases where, as in renal colic, the pain is likely to be suddenly terminated by the natural progress of the affection, thus destroying the physiological antagonism which exists between pain and morphine, and allowing the drug to exercise its full power to an extent which may be over-narcotic. The use of atropine with the morphine will mitigate to some extent its danger, without interfering with its analgesic effects.

{46} In the milder cases ether and chloroform may be of value given by the mouth, while in excessively severe ones anæsthetics by inhalation may be called for, and their use continued for hours. This course also is not without its inconveniences. The writer has seen a case where a somewhat prolonged maniacal attack, with delusions lasting several days, came on after the long-continued use of chloroform to relieve the pain incident to the passage of a multitude of small uric-acid calculi.

The use of diluents has been suggested as hastening the passage, but there is no reason to doubt that the pressure upon the calculus is always sufficient to move it forward as rapidly as its shape and size will permit. The relaxation of the spasmodically contracted ureter is of much more importance than an excessive vis-a-tergo applied to the calculus.

The treatment of the incipient calculus in the kidney or of the condition which gives rise to it must naturally vary according to its chemical constitution, which can only be certainly determined after its discharge, but as to which an approximate opinion can be formed from a knowledge of the tendencies and diseases of the patient and from an examination of the urine.

The use of a largely-diluted solution of citrate of lithia or of acetate, citrate, or tartrate of potassium will probably prevent the deposition of uric-acid sand, and might even dissolve a small calculus, although the proofs of this having actually been done are not conclusive. If the urine be largely diluted the risk of the formation of a calculus of another kind--i.e. phosphatic--is not great. Simple water would be of great value in many cases, both as dissolving uric acid and as promoting the metamorphosis of tissue, upon some abnormality of which the accumulation of uric acid is supposed to depend. The benzoate of lithia, by the destructive action which Garrod has shown benzoic acid or its derivative hippuric acid to have upon uric acid and the solvent action of the lithia, may be of value. The phosphatic deposit, on the other hand, although beneficially influenced by a sufficient supply of water, is not so amenable to chemical influence as the other form, because it is much easier to render the urine alkaline than acid when any irritation of the urinary passages is present.

The vegetable acids, however, pass into the urine, and may render it acid if in sufficient quantity. Benzoic acid becomes hippuric acid, and can be used to make the urine more acid, as it causes very little gastric irritation even in considerable doses. Boric acid also passes into the urine, and acidifies as well as disinfects it, and might perhaps be used to promote the solution of a phosphatic stone, though the writer is unaware of any instance in which this has actually been done. It does much toward diminishing suppuration in the urinary passages, upon which phosphatic urine largely depends.

The conditions which lead to the deposit of oxalate of lime are not sufficiently well known to make the prophylaxis of this calculus easy by any chemical means, except by dilution of the urine and by a general tonic regimen with abundant exercise.

Although it is not usual for a calculus to be arrested in the ureter after having once fairly entered, this sometimes occurs, and the result is stoppage of the flow of urine upon that side, dilatation of the ureter, followed in turn by dilatation of the pelvis, and finally atrophy of the {47} renal substance. This does not happen suddenly, however. The urinary passages do not rapidly dilate to any considerable extent, and their increase in calibre under pressure from within has been considered a growth rather than a distension. This condition will be treated under the head of Hydro-nephrosis.

Calculous Pyelitis.

When a calculus remains in the pelvis of the kidney without completely obstructing the flow of urine, it usually increases in size, while the resulting irritation may be the cause of fresh deposits either upon the surface of the original calculus or in the form of new concretions. In this way immense deposits of urinary salts may be formed. Thus, in a case given in detail in the second series of Boston City Hospital Reports there was found upon the one side a calculus which when perfectly clean and dry weighed 204 grammes, filling the whole dilated pelvis and sending prolongations into the calices, so that its shape was compared to that of a hippopotamus. The resemblance was made more complete by the wrinkling and roughness of the exterior. In the other kidney were several hundred calculi, from the size (and shape) of a large almond down to that of white mustard-seed. The latter were composed of two apparently distinct substances--one a reddish-brown, looking like uric acid, and the other of the color and polish of white marble; both, however, were phosphates.

The amount of local disturbance produced in the pelvis of the kidney by the presence of a foreign body seems to depend somewhat upon the character of its surface. Rough and uneven calculi, such as oxalate of lime, are apt to produce inflammation much more rapidly than smooth and polished ones, but it is seldom that any calculus remains without some pyelitis. At first only a loss of polish of the mucous membrane, with a little increase of mucus, may be observed, to which succeed roughening and suppuration with occasional fibrinous deposit. The pelvis, more or less dilated, may then contain a quantity of mucopurulent urine, with perhaps some blood, in which are concealed the stones which have given rise to this condition, and often phosphatic deposits not converted into calculi.

Pyelitis is divided by some foreign writers into catarrhal and diphtheritic--a distinction rather of degree than of kind. The mucous membrane of the pelvis may, like other mucous membranes rarely, and like serous membranes often, throw out a fibrinous exudation which takes the form of false membrane. This indicates intensity of inflammation, but has no necessary connection with diphtheria. A true diphtheritic pyelitis, that is, connected with the general disease known as diphtheria, is of course a conceivable lesion, but certainly not a common one.

The renal symptoms--especially true albuminuria, so common and of such grave import in this disease--are due to lesions of the secreting substance, and not of the pelvis. It is important, but not always easy, to decide whether there is more albumen present than is to be accounted for by the pus. The pyelitis may be acute or chronic, being {48} characterized by the intensity of the attack and the rapidity with which the symptoms subside. The prospect of a given attack being acute is decided largely by the supposed cause: a small calculus passing into the ureter undoubtedly gives rise in most instances to a localized pyelitis, which subsides after the cause of irritation has disappeared. An inflammation from a larger one remaining is naturally of slower development, but may be more acute while the calculus remains rough and irritating, and partially subside when it becomes covered with a smoother coating of phosphates. The mucous membrane, however, is not likely to regain a completely healthy condition.

The mucous membrane in severe pyelitis may be deeply eroded, and even perforated, so that the contents of the pelvis escape and give rise to abscess in the perinephritic or prevertebral cellular tissue, which may be discharged through the loins with resulting cure, or the establishment of a fistula, from which issues pus and at times calculi. Among the rarer results of perforation may be mentioned gastro-nephric and duodeno-nephric fistulæ. These might be diagnosticated by the presence of food and other intestinal contents in the urine, provided that the ureter were still pervious. Vomiting of calculi and urine has been reported by the older writers.

The writer is indebted to J. R. Chadwick for references to two modern cases--one where such a fistula was diagnosticated during life;[16] and another where a gastro-nephric fistula was found after death.[17] In the latter case a diagnosis would have been impossible, as the kidney was disorganized and the ureter occluded. The extent to which the renal secreting substance suffers in calculous pyelitis varies considerably, and is very probably connected with the amount of pressure exercised either by the calculus itself when it attains a large size or by the urine in cases of obstruction. It is rare for either pyelitis or hydro-nephrosis to exist entirely independently.

[Footnote 16: Giornale di Anat. e Fis. path., iii. p. 370.]

[Footnote 17: Marquezy, Thèse de Paris, 1856.]

The changes which take place are those of atrophy. Interstitial suppurative nephritis seems to follow this form of pyelitis much less frequently than that which is due to extension upward of disease in the lower urinary passages.

Corresponding to the pressure of solid or fluid, the papillæ are eroded and the straight tubes shortened. In the cortical substance, which soon becomes diminished in thickness, the interstitial tissue is hypertrophied, dense, and hard, while the tubes become smaller or in time disappear. The Malpighian bodies are changed to dense masses of connective tissue, but are still plainly recognizable, irregularly crowded together instead of being arranged as usual in more or less symmetrical double rows. The cortex of the kidney may thus become but little more than a mere skin stretched over a large stone, with perhaps here and there a piece of renal structure recognizable and in a comparatively normal condition.

The extremer grades of hydro-nephrosis do not seem to be met with in this form of atrophy, but the pelvis is considerably dilated, while its internal capacity is also added to by the atrophy of the renal substance. The interior of the cyst thus formed usually retains distinct traces of its original division into infundibula, and may be, as already stated, almost filled by the calculus. Kidneys undergoing this process of degeneration {49} often furnish up to a short time before death a normal, or even more than normal, amount of urine, and one is often astonished to find how little disturbance of elimination has been caused in cases where the true kidney-structure seems to the naked eye to have been almost entirely destroyed.

The DIAGNOSIS of a calculus remaining in the pelvis of the kidney depends chiefly on the determination of hæmaturia and pyelitis for which no other cause can be found, and upon the presence of pain in one loin. It is naturally greatly assisted by the presence or history of renal colic. An aching pain in the loins, more or less permanent, is a frequent but not invariable symptom. It may be such as to prevent the patient from standing upright, and cause him to assume an habitually stooping posture in standing or walking. A careful examination of the urine in conjunction with this symptom, especially if an unusually abnormal condition has been preceded by an exacerbation of the pain, may make the diagnosis almost certain. In the beginning of a case occasional not severe hæmaturia, with some increase of mucus or a little pus, may be all that can lead to the suspicion of calculus as the cause of pain. At a later period an increase of these symptoms, with a considerable quantity of the peculiar irregular epithelium lining the pelvis, may be observed. The latter constituent, however, can hardly be looked upon as entirely conclusive of pyelitis, since the lower urinary passages may give rise to cells of about the same form and size, and the irregularity is likely to be increased beyond recognition by the presence of inflammation. They may also undergo change of form in the urine. The presence of transparent or other casts denotes the irritation of the renal parenchyma.

The point of chief difficulty in the diagnosis of pyelitis is the determination of the origin of the pus, whether from the kidney or the bladder. Cystitis may be only partly excluded by the absence of dysuria. A point of considerable weight is the reaction of the urine, that from the kidneys being usually acid, while that from the bladder, when cystitis of much severity exists, is alkaline or rapidly becomes so. The pus coming from the kidneys is more intimately mixed with the often profuse urine than when formed in the bladder. The whole of it does not in the former case completely subside, but remains in sufficient quantity to form a turbid or opalescent mixture--the polyuric trouble of Felix Guyon, according to whom this condition in an acid urine is strongly indicative of renal as distinguished from vesical lesion. In cystitis the pus subsides in more or less distinct masses, but if the urine is alkaline, or when it becomes so, is altered to a ropy consistency usually spoken of as muco-purulent.

The procedure recommended by Thompson may be resorted to in order to determine whether the urine comes from the kidneys loaded with cellular detritus, or whether the addition is made in the bladder. This consists in washing out thoroughly the bladder with several successive quantities of water through a single catheter, until the water comes away clear and the bladder has contracted itself around the instrument, when the urine from the kidneys will for a time come through direct and comparatively uncontaminated.

In cases where the urine is alkaline in the kidney, which may happen, distinctions founded on the reaction cannot be of value, and the same {50} may be said of cases where cystitis is known to exist, but where there is in addition a possibility of a renal calculus. In these some such mechanical procedure as that just described must be resorted to.

The presence of a calculus as a cause of pyelitis cannot always be demonstrated, but may be more or less strongly suspected according to the conclusiveness with which any other cause can be excluded, by the definiteness and character of the local pain, the history of renal colic, the presence of uric-acid crystals in the urine, and perhaps in some cases the results of palpation. The exploring-needle may be used, and may of course, if reaching the calculus and giving a characteristic grating feeling and sound, give absolutely positive results; but a failure to strike a stone could hardly be regarded as proof positive of its absence.

The diagnosis of renal calculus from lumbago or neuralgia should rest, in case the pain is severe enough or long-continued enough to really cause the question to arise, upon an examination of the urine.

A very important point in diagnosis, especially when the question of operative procedure arises, is that of the soundness of the other kidney. Accidental circumstances will sometimes permit this to be determined; as, for instance, when one ureter is suddenly blocked by a calculus, and at the same time the urine, which has previously been found purulent, bloody, and containing renal cells and casts, becomes clear and normal until the obstruction is removed and the abnormal ingredients reappear. Cases of exstrophied bladder, where of course it is possible easily to separate the urine of the two kidneys, may be, from their rarity, practically left out of the account. Various proposals for obtaining the separate urine of the two kidneys have been made. A small catheter has been passed into the female ureter through the dilated urethra. In the female also a finger in the vagina may succeed in temporarily blocking one ureter, while the secretion of the other alone is filling the bladder, a catheter with a bent portion at the end being used for making counter-pressure from the inside. It would probably remain doubtful in most cases how successful this manoeuvre had been in completely stopping the flow of urine, although experiments upon the dead body have been made by Polk,[18] who proposes the method, with entire success. The male bladder offers greater difficulties, which are at present insurmountable. A point opposite the lower end of the ureter can, it is true, be reached with some difficulty in the rectum, and it is possible that a catheter might be so adjusted as to make counter-pressure to the finger in this position, but there could be no certainty that the occlusion was complete.

[Footnote 18: New York Med. Journ., Feb. 17, 1883.]

The whole hand in the rectum, after Simon's method, would enable the object to be accomplished with more certainty, but this procedure has risks of its own. A staff with flattened extremity, as suggested by Weir,[19] may more conveniently, though with somewhat less certainty, be used for pressing from within the rectum on the ureter where it passes over the brim of the pelvis. A compressorium consisting of an empty and folded bag, to be introduced into the bladder and there expanded by the introduction of metallic mercury, has been described and used, with the result of partly checking the flow of urine.[20] The proposition to pinch up the extremity of one ureter in the bladder by means of the lithotrite is still {51} more open to the objection of great uncertainty, and would, to say the least, demand very special skill to obtain even a chance of success.

[Footnote 19: Ibid., Dec. 27, 1884.]

[Footnote 20: See Weir's article, just quoted.]

None of these procedures have as yet been put to practical use, and it is doubtful whether any of them, unless we except perhaps the use of a staff in the rectum, would be justified for purely diagnostic purposes, considering the great risks involved. For the present, at least, the possibility of separating the secretion of one kidney from that of the other must be looked upon as depending chiefly upon accident, and in case of contemplated operation it is not possible to assure one's self of the integrity of the other kidney before the abdomen is opened. In many cases after opening the abdomen both kidneys may be examined before deciding upon further steps. Lawson Tait considers an exploratory incision distinctly indicated whenever abdominal disease not malignant threatens the life of the patient. 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.

The SYMPTOMS arising from a large calculus producing destruction of the renal substance, when both kidneys are affected or one is insufficient to supplement the partial or total loss of the other, may closely resemble those of diffuse nephritis, either interstitial or parenchymatous, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that these forms of nephritis are the symptoms of such a change. Thus we may have polyuria, albumen, and casts, dyspnoea, dropsy, and uræmia. The enormous calculus described above as resembling a hippopotamus had given rise to no marked symptoms until palpitation, dyspnoea, and oedema were complained of; the heart was hypertrophied.

The TREATMENT of calculi remaining in the kidney is, so far as medical means are concerned, that which has been already described, and, to say the least, is not a high degree of efficiency. Rest, diuretics, and solvents of the kind already spoken of, and narcotics, may afford relief, and in the case of quite small calculi, such as sometimes remain in the kidney even when not too large to pass through the ureter, solution is possible; but there is even less reason to suppose that large calculi can be dissolved in the kidney than that the tendency to their formation can be counteracted.

Surgery, however, offers in some cases complete relief. Two operations have been undertaken for this purpose, of which the surgical details are here inappropriate, but the indications for which may very properly be discussed from a medical point of view. These are nephrotomy or nephro-lithotomy, the removal of the stone through an incision in the pelvis or secreting substance of the kidney; and nephrectomy, or the removal of the whole gland with its contents. It is obvious that the indications for these two operations are quite different, although cases are likely to arise where it will be well to change the plan from the former to the latter during the operation.

When a sinus exists from the inflamed and perforated pelvis, or an abscess connected with the kidney has been recently opened, it may be dilated or enlarged by incision sufficiently to allow the passage of an exploring finger and forceps. The large arterial and venous branches which surround the pelvis make it safer to trust rather to dilatation or {52} tearing to get through to its interior than to incision, which must, if necessary, be practised with great care. Experience has shown that an incision can be made through the renal substance without great danger, the hemorrhage being chiefly venous. This incision has been made in several cases, and where the secreting portion is much atrophied is obviously of still less consequence than in the healthy kidney. After the removal of the calculus, drainage may be established for a time until the pelvis has resumed its normal condition or the purulent discharge has diminished.

If no sinus exists, but a diagnosis has been clearly made, or even if symptoms of sufficient severity exist to justify a strong suspicion and decisive treatment, an incision may be made along the edge of the erector spinæ or the great mass of muscle attached to the spinal column and passing through the quadratus lumborum. An incision outside of the quadratus lumborum will come upon the kidney, but too far outside to make a direct access to the pelvis practicable. If it be known, however, that the cut must be made through the kidney itself, then the primary incision through the skin may be made in the exterior line, and will be less deep. Measuring along the last rib two inches from its extremity, and then at right angles an inch and a half downward and inward, will indicate a point at which a puncture will reach the renal pelvis. This may be made the central point of an incision, though it is often necessary to utilize the whole space from the last rib to the crest of the ilium. After reaching and exploring the kidney with the finger, the incision may be carried cautiously through the pelvis and enlarged by dilatation or tearing.

In order to feel the calculus it may be necessary to have counter-pressure made from the front of the abdomen in order to lift or fix the kidney, and a case has been mentioned where the finger, having failed to reach a calculus behind, was carried around and in front of the kidney with success. If the calculus is too large or too irregular to be removed whole, it may be broken and extracted piecemeal.

This lumbar method is undoubtedly to be preferred when it is known that a simple nephrotomy will be sufficient or when the more or less diseased kidney is to be treated as a cyst or abscess by drainage. It is open to the objection that if it be found desirable to change the operation into an nephrectomy, it is not quite so easy to remove a large mass in this way as by laparotomy, and the pedicle is much less accessible. The objection is not sufficient, however, to contraindicate it in many cases, for additional room can be obtained by resection of the last rib. So far as the writer is aware, laparotomy has never been performed for the simple removal of a calculus.

Nephrectomy, or removal of the kidney, may be required for various conditions, among which is to be reckoned a renal calculus with pyelitis of sufficient severity to threaten life or give rise to constant suffering; but as it is often indicated for other reasons, its consideration will be deferred.

Pyelitis may be excited by the presence of other foreign bodies, among which are coagula and parasites. An acute pyelitis may accompany an acute nephritis. Occasionally also an idiopathic pyelitis is said to be met with, but it must be difficult in such a case to exclude the presence of some irritant which has escaped observation.

{53} Secondary Pyelitis.

Pyelitis is most frequently excited by the propagation of an inflammatory process upward from the bladder, and hence it is, with its resulting effects upon the renal structure, one of the most important complications of chronic cystitis and of surgical affections in the lower urinary passages. Anatomically, a pyelitis of this character differs but little from that of local origin described above, except that the contents of the inflamed cavity do not include deposits of urinary salts unless such have been formed secondarily. It is, however, more likely to be severe, and especially to affect the true renal substance more rapidly and more seriously, and consequently to be attended with constitutional symptoms in an acute form.

Two factors are of especial importance in determining the rate of development and severity of pyelitis supervening on affections of the urinary passages: First, the amount of obstruction which exists to the exit of the urine; and, secondly, the character of the cystitis as regards decomposition of the urine. It is obvious that whatever sends urine back into the ureters, or, what is the same thing, prevents its passage downward, will by keeping it longer in contact with the mucous membrane intensify whatever morbid action such an irritant would have, and of course a putrid or ammoniacal urine will induce inflammatory action, while a normal secretion might remain for a long time innocuous. Hence it is that we may have hydro-nephrosis and pyelitis entirely distinct from each other, but are very likely to have both combined in most cases.

It is especially in surgical affections of the urinary passages, involving, as many of them do, considerable obstruction with a more or less intense cystitis, that we meet with the combination of the two conditions. Such are enlarged prostate with its usual obstruction and frequent chronically-distended bladder, with ammoniacal, purulent, and decomposing urine, or stricture with frequent over-contraction of the bladder, forcing the urine backward as well as forward. In diseases of the female generative organs we are more likely to have the hydro-nephrosis and pyelitis as separate affections, since the compression which so frequently arises in cases of cancer or of pelvic inflammation is likely to be above the bladder, thus preventing the regurgitation of urine as well as its passage downward.

Two conditions of the renal substance seem to result from pyelitis of this kind: one, a chronic nephritis already described, with increased formation of connective tissue, atrophy of the tubes and the Malpighian bodies (the latter, however, remaining recognizable, although crowded together), and a general, and at times extreme, shrinking of the whole organ. The other is more acute, and consists in the formation of abscesses of small size, which in the medullary portion are somewhat elongated and arranged parallel to the tubes, and in the cortical portion preserve a less degree of regularity, though still having some reference to the columnar arrangement of the masses of convoluted tubes. The intervening structure is usually in a marked condition of parenchymatous degeneration. This is the so-called surgical kidney.

Whether the one or the other of these processes shall take place probably depends chiefly on the infectiousness of the cystitis or of the urine {54} contained in the bladder and backing up into the kidneys, although it is not necessary that any degree of dilatation should be present for this condition to arise. Sometimes also the surgical kidney may be found when the original cystitis is not at all severe.

The DIAGNOSIS of a pyelitis supervening on a cystitis is not always easy, but may frequently be inferred, and it is possible that by careful treatment of the cystitis it may be reduced to a very low grade of severity, while the pyelitis still remains, which will permit the diagnosis to be somewhat more conclusive.

If the urine comes acid, but pus-laden, from the kidney, it will soon assume the contrary reaction in the bladder, and the pus will be changed by the ammonia into so-called muco-pus; the cells supposed to be characteristic of the pelvis of the kidney will, like the pus-cells, be so altered by the same causes, and so intermixed with similar cells from the bladder, that the distinction will be difficult or impossible. The presence of a few hyaline casts is very likely to be noticed, and indicates irritation, or perhaps a more decided implication, of the renal substance. Nothing, however, can be inferred from failure to find them. Hæmaturia is not so necessary an accompaniment of this form of pyelitis as of that arising from a mechanical irritant in the kidney. If, however, the urine does not become rapidly altered in the bladder, or if by any of the processes mentioned above the kidney urine can be obtained in a condition of comparative purity, the microscopic indications become more precise.

A dull pain and tenderness in the loins and along the course of the ureters is a symptom of value, though by no mean conclusive, and should lead to a suspicion of pyelitis. A polyuria of short duration may be a purely nervous symptom, but a persistent flow of pale urine, which fails to settle clear, and of which the turbidity is caused by pus, is due in great probability to renal disease, and if it could be shown to come in this condition from the kidney would almost certainly denote pyelitis.

The rational SYMPTOMS are of the greatest value as determining the extent and severity of the disease, although it may be impossible to distribute them with absolute exactness between the various organs involved--that is, bladder, pelvis, and renal substance.

The occurrence of a single chill, or even of several, with rapid subsidence of the fever, is not conclusive, since the ordinary urinary fever supervening on surgical operations, even so slight as passing the catheter, is not necessarily connected with renal disease.

A long-continued fever, not especially intense and of a more or less distinctly intermittent type, especially if becoming at some definite period decidedly more intense, is likely to mean the invasion of a new tract of mucous membrane, such as that of the renal pelves or even of the kidney-substance itself. Continued or remittent urinary fever is of very grave import. With this fever will appear the dry red tongue and the distressing anorexia, nausea, and vomiting, with either constipation or diarrhoea.

The TREATMENT of this form of pyelitis, so far as it differs from that of the calculous variety, depends largely upon that of the causative cystitis, though not entirely, since if it has once assumed the chronic condition it does not necessarily subside even if the cystitis be cured. The essentials of treatment may be said to be drainage from below and washing from below and from above. The measures for carrying the first of {55} these indications are those which are also required for the causative cystitis, and, being chiefly surgical, a minute description of them does not come within the scope of this article. They may be simply catheterization, dilatation, divulsion or section of a stricture of the urethra, drainage of the bladder through the rectum or through the perineum.

It is not out of place, however, even in a strictly medical essay, to point out the extreme importance, not only in the way of treatment, but of prophylaxis, of securing a free exit for the urine. Even that small degree of obstruction or hindrance which leads a person to habitually put a little extra strain upon the bladder in order to expel its contents, especially if it be allowed occasionally to become dilated, may gradually lead to dilatation of the ureters, and thus make an easy passage upward for inflammatory and decomposed urine if such should afterward be formed as a consequence of cystitis by retention. The washing of the bladder from the urethra may be done with a great variety of antiseptics and acids: nitric acid in the proportion of 1 per mille may be used to change the reaction of the urine. Carbolic acid should be carefully used, from the danger of its absorption in poisonous amounts. Boric acid is a safe and quite efficient antiseptic.

Washing from above, which is evidently that which alone can directly affect the renal pelvis, must be done with such drugs as can be safely given internally, so that carbolic acid cannot be of much use in this way. Salicylic acid loses a part, but not all, of its antiseptic properties in its passage through the blood and kidneys. Boric acid passes readily into the urine, alters its reaction, and seems to have some antiseptic action. It is unirritating in the stomach, and may be given in doses of 30 centigrammes or 5 grains to the extent of 1 or 2 grammes per diem. Benzoic acid and the benzoate of sodium, ammonium, or lithium have been found to be of value in cystitis, and as they can only reach the bladder by previously passing over the pelvic mucous membrane, they should also have a good effect here. It is obvious that constitutional symptoms arising from cystitis and its consequent nephritis may demand the most attention, and should evidently be of a decidedly supporting character, the details of which have no special reference to the disease, but to the general condition. Quinine may be called for as an antipyretic.

The question of removal of a kidney for pyo-nephrosis is less likely to arise in this form than the other, since from its causation it is much more likely to be bilateral; but if under any peculiarity of anatomical arrangement, such as greater dilatation of the one ureter, it should be found that one kidney was nearly healthy while the other was in a state of pyelitis, and purulent inflammation was giving rise to serious constitutional disturbance, such an operation might be undertaken.

The operation of nephrectomy, or removal of the kidney, may be required for various lesions, most of which include more or less pyelitis, and it may be considered once for all in this place. It has now been practised more than one hundred times. A table including 100 cases is given by R. P. Harris in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences for July, 1882, and many have been recorded since.[21] It can, of course, hardly be expected that the removal of one of a pair of vital organs, under circumstances where it is often the case that the other is not {56} completely capable of carrying on the additional work, should present the same favorable array of statistics as ovariotomy; but it gives no small number of recoveries in cases which without it would undoubtedly have proved fatal, and it must be considered as having a legitimate and well-defined place among the major operations.

[Footnote 21: Weir, New York Med. Journ., Dec. 27, 1884.]

There are two distinct methods, besides, of course, all the minor differences of detail called for in the individual case. The kidney may be reached from the loin by an incision along the outer edge of the erector spinæ, as already described for nephrotomy. It is to be enucleated from its capsule of fat by the fingers, and a ligature or ligatures passed around the pedicle consisting of the veins, arteries, and ureter. The kidney is then cut off, possibly leaving a little renal substance if the pedicle be short and accessible with difficulty. The wound is left partly open for drainage. This method has the advantage of avoiding the peritoneum and the handling of other abdominal organs. Its disadvantages are, in some cases, the want of room, and when undertaken for the relief of floating kidney the difficulty of finding the organ, which is likely to be at the end of a pouch formed of peritoneum. In cases of calculous pyelitis, where it may be at the beginning of the operation uncertain whether merely an incision for the removal of a stone or a total removal of a kidney of normal size may be necessary, this line of approach presents decided advantages.

The other method is by abdominal incision or laparotomy, which is usually made through the linea alba, though in a number of cases the outer edge of the rectus abdominis on the side corresponding to the organ to be removed has been taken as the guide. The steps of the operation are similar to those of ovariotomy where the pedicle is tied and returned to the abdominal cavity. This operation may be one of choice, from the greater ease with which the pedicle can be reached and the possibility of increasing the length of the incision in case of necessity for the removal of a very large tumor. In one case a crucial incision was made. When the kidney to be removed is a wandering one, and especially when a kidney has become fixed in an anomalous position, this is by far the easiest, and sometimes the only practicable, method.

Antiseptic precautions are of course to be used.

Hydro-nephrosis.

Obstruction to the discharge of urine from the body naturally produces special disorders in the secreting and discharging organs. If the obstruction exist below the neck of the bladder, as in stricture of the urethra or enlarged prostate, then the bladder is the organ primarily affected, and it may become distended, sacculated, its muscular coat hypertrophied, its mucous membrane affected with catarrhal inflammation, and its contents changed from the normal by the addition of mucus, of pus, of bacteria, or a deposit of earthy phosphates from the ammoniacal reaction produced by decomposition of the urea.

The effects of distension of the bladder will sooner or later make themselves felt in the upper urinary passages, and will then give rise to the same dilatation of the ureters and the renal pelvis as occurs when the {57} obstruction is higher up. As regards the rapidity with which such changes progress, much depends upon the degree of obstruction as well as upon the amount of urine secreted. It probably, however, never takes place suddenly.

In a case which came under the observation of the writer a partial paralysis of the bladder, probably existing from infancy, had in the course of three or four years, during which large quantities of light urine were passed, given rise to dilatation of the ureters, slight dilatation of the pelvis of the kidneys, atrophy of the parenchyma, and hypertrophy of the left ventricle.

Obstructions in the course of the ureters may exist at their opening into the bladder, which may be contracted by chronic cystitis; at a point immediately above this from compression by morbid growths, especially of the uterus, one of the most common causes of hydro-nephrosis, or even from retroflexion of the uterus when pregnant; at any point in its course by a twisting or sharp angle, as in movable kidney, although this is a much rarer accident than might be supposed; or at the brim of the pelvis, where it may be bound down by old peritoneal adhesions, and at its junction with the renal pelvis, which may be formed in such a manner as to constitute a valve, so that the urine escapes slowly or with great difficulty; or where it may be blocked by a calculus or other deposit in the cavity of the pelvis.

Obstructions by a twist or angle or by a valvular opening may, it is obvious, be temporary or intermittent in their action, and probably some arrangement of this kind was present in the cases which have been reported of relief of hydro-nephrosis by gentle massage of the abdomen.

Above the point of obstruction the ureter and pelvis are found dilated and the walls somewhat thinned. The kidney and its pelvis form a more or less irregular rounded pouch, with the tense cylindrical tube of the ureter attached to it below. The kidney itself becomes in various degrees atrophied. In some cases it retains nearly all its secreting structure, and is merely spread out upon the surface of the sac; in others, while the pelvis is but little dilated, the true kidney substance atrophies almost completely, and becomes a mere shell enclosing a cavity continuous with the pelvis and broken up by fibrous septa into subordinate cavities representing the original calices. A partial hydro-nephrosis is sometimes observed affecting only the calices.

Whether the one or the other of these conditions shall result depends, as has already been remarked, upon the completeness and suddenness of the obstruction. If the ureter of a rabbit is ligatured, the second condition--that is, atrophy of the kidney with but little dilatation--is observed. The pressure of urine soon puts a stop to further secretion, and there is no time for a slow and gradual dilatation of the pelvis and ureter. When, as is much more frequently the case in the human subject, the obstruction is more gradual or incomplete, the back pressure is for a long time insufficient to completely stop the passage of fluid through the renal capillaries, so that the pelvis and ureter, though allowing their contents to pass out only under a considerable vis-a-tergo, have time to accommodate themselves to the change, and dilate gradually, attaining sometimes enormous dimensions. The size of a hydro-nephrotic sac varies greatly: 60 liters of contents is certainly a very extreme case.

{58} The sac is usually white and glistening, thinner at some places than at others, and lined with a smooth, pale, and atrophied mucous membrane. The muscular layer has degenerated, and perhaps partly disappeared. The liquid contained in the sac, supposing no inflammatory products to have been mingled therewith, is at first nearly identical with urine, and always contains urea. Afterward its character changes from the absorption of the urinary salts and the secretion of mucus. The contents may be dark-colored from hemorrhage or somewhat gelatinous. At a later period again they become serous and may contain cholesterin.

The description just given, as well as that of the symptoms, applies to simple hydro-nephrosis. When the sac has become inflamed we have the very common combination with pyelitis, and the affection is called pyo-nephrosis. The progress of a case of hydro-nephrosis may be in rare cases to recovery by spontaneous re-establishment of the permeability of the ureter. In others it persists a long time without giving rise to trouble. If inflammation supervene, it is obvious that fever, either simply irritative or of pyæmic character, may be a severe or even a fatal concomitant, or that in this condition a perforation may take place. When the tumor is large it may from its bulk alone produce disturbance of the circulation, dyspnoea, palpitation, and oedema of the lower limbs.

As regards the influence of this lesion on the secretion of urine, everything must depend on the amount of renal atrophy. A single kidney may undoubtedly be completely atrophied by this as by any other lesion without producing serious symptoms, since, as has been repeatedly demonstrated, the other is sufficient to carry on the work under ordinary circumstances; but if, as very frequently happens, both kidneys are involved, there must come a time when the renal substance no longer suffices, and the usual results of suppression of urine follow. It is possible, however, for extensive changes to take place in both kidneys before symptoms of insufficient secretion arise.

Hydro-nephrosis, in the entire absence of inflammatory symptoms and in the presence of conditions likely to cause it known to exist in the lower urinary passages, may be rather suspected than diagnosticated until the appearance of a tumor. Some dull pain in the loins without irradiations in any direction may exist, but so common a symptom can have but little weight in diagnosis. For an early recognition of swelling in suspected cases where nothing can be felt anteriorly, it has been recommended that the patient be placed upon the hands and knees, when the flank upon the affected side, instead of falling slightly forward and leaving a shallow depression outside of the erector spinæ, will remain full or protuberant. When an enlargement evidently connected with the kidney makes its appearance after obstruction to the passage of urine is known to exist, the diagnosis may often be very simple; but if the tumor be the first phenomenon observed, as may easily happen when the obstruction is situated high up or even at the commencement of the ureter, it may require to be distinguished from several other kinds of tumor occupying the lumbar region, or, since hydro-nephrosis of a movable or misplaced kidney sometimes takes place, from tumors of the abdomen in general. From solid malignant tumors of the kidney the feeling of comparative elasticity and fluctuation will in most cases distinguish it, though an encephaloid kidney may be so soft as to render the second of these points of {59} comparatively little value. Absence of hæmaturia and of the cancerous cachexia, though not conclusive, would have much weight.

A hydatid cyst might counterfeit a hydro-nephrosis, but instances of this affection having its primary seat in the kidney are of extreme rarity. An ordinary cystic kidney is most likely to be connected with chronic diffuse interstitial nephritis, which will have made itself manifest by the usual symptoms, and is moreover unlikely to attain the dimensions of a large or even moderate hydro-nephrosis. In a thin person the ureter might, if felt dilated through the abdominal walls, clear up the diagnosis. Extreme cases of cystic kidney with comparatively little nephritis may, however, present great similarity and cause difficulty in diagnosis.

From most other tumors of the abdominal cavity those of the kidney present the important distinction that they are situated behind the peritoneum, and consequently behind the intestines, so that the surface of a renal tumor is likely to be crossed by a more or less extensive area of percussion resonance, representing usually the large intestine. This criterion is, however, not absolute, since a renal tumor may push the colon completely to one side, or, on the other hand, tumors not connected with the kidney may allow the intestine to come between themselves and the abdominal wall.

An ovarian cyst is more manifestly attached to the pelvis, and its history will disclose the fact of its having arisen from below. A gravid uterus should also, when small, be manifestly connected with the pelvis, and when larger be accompanied by the usual symptoms of pregnancy. The same may be said of extra-uterine pregnancy, which may be mentioned as among the conditions possibly giving rise to difficulties in diagnosis.

The most efficient aid to diagnosis, when it is of importance that such should be accurately made, is the aspirator-needle, which will procure a fluid more or less characteristic of the tumor into which it is thrust. In hydro-nephrosis the contents are a somewhat dilute urine, with perhaps mucus; in a solid tumor, blood, with pieces of tissue recognizable by the microscope; in a cystic tumor, fluid which is perhaps somewhat urinous, but much more changed than in simple hydro-nephrosis, and perhaps containing solid-looking bodies with concentric and radiating striation; in hydatid cysts, hooks and fragments of scolices; in ovarian cysts, the various contents, fluid and semi-fluid, but not urinous, generally found therein.

With all these means, however, cases will occasionally arise in which expert diagnosticians may be lead astray, and the difficulties become considerably greater when the dilated pelvis is that of a displaced or unusually-placed kidney. Such cases have been subjected to operation under the impression that an ovarian cyst was present.

The medical TREATMENT of hydro-nephrosis is nil. In many cases nothing is demanded by the immediate necessities of the case, and atrophy, if it be probable that only one kidney is involved, may be allowed to take place without interference. It is possible that in some instances manipulation of the tumor might relieve the obstruction and allow the tumor to subside when a slight twist or angle in the ureter is the cause. The fact of an occasional spontaneous subsidence of such a tumor shows that something of this kind has taken place.

{60} The surgical treatment of affections of the lower urinary passages, as both a prophylactic and therapeutic measure, has already been spoken of under the head of Pyelitis. It would, however, be only in a minority of cases of pure hydro-nephrosis that the seat of obstruction could be efficiently reached by surgery.

Puncture and aspiration of the sac may very properly be resorted to, and may prove of value--in the first place, as a more or less temporary relief; and secondly, as a means of re-establishing the flow through the natural passages by the relief of pressure and consequent opening of the valvular fold, which has occasionally been observed at the junction of the ureter with the pelvis.

In a case where the obstruction is known to be irremediable, and where the hydro-nephrosis, if existing only on one side, is likely to increase, it is not desirable to make the puncture too early or to repeat it too frequently, since by allowing the pressure to increase the atrophy of the kidney will be more rapidly accomplished, and the need of frequently emptying the sac will not arise so often in the future. On the other hand, if there is a prospect of a restoration, if both kidneys are affected, or if the kidney not involved in the hydro-nephrosis is known to be seriously impaired in function, and it is desirable to preserve the secreting structure as long as possible, the punctures should be so arranged as to keep the pressure at its minimum. This must, however, be regarded as a temporary expedient. The puncture may be made either from the back or front, though in most cases the latter position, if the puncture be made with a small clean needle, would be the more convenient, and equally safe notwithstanding its traversing the peritoneum.

A hydro-nephrosis may be treated either by removal or by drainage. Both of these methods have been resorted to, and are to be employed according to the circumstances of the individual case. A pyo-nephrosis naturally demands interference more peremptorily and more promptly than a simple hydro-nephrosis, because it exposes the patient to the dangers not only of its pressure and of its tendency to destruction of the renal substance, but to those more urgent ones of purulent infection or of perforation and perinephritic abscess. Removal is to be undertaken by the ordinary rules of laparotomy. Drainage has been arranged in cases where removal was impossible or unadvisable by stitching the edges of an opened sac to the external wound. It is possible that the choice between the two operations can be made only after the primary incisions and explorations have advanced sufficiently to enable the extent of adhesions and the amount of healthy renal substance to be approximately determined.

Staples of Dubuque states, on the basis of 71 cases collected by him, that "63 per cent. of patients operated on are cured by lumbar nephrectomy, 68 per cent. by open methods in general, and up to date 100 per cent. by either lumbar incision and drainage or the creation of a fistula."

Malignant Growths.

As pathological rarities only, and having but little clinical interest, may be mentioned, as occurring in the kidneys, fibroma, lipoma, {61} myxoma, anginoma, and adenoma. Malignant growths originating in or involving the kidneys, sarcoma or carcinoma, are, however, more frequent and more important.

Sarcoma, primitive or secondary, of the kidney is a somewhat rare occurrence, but most frequent in children. The whole kidney may be transformed into a mass occupying its place and somewhat resembling it in form, but many times exceeding it in bulk and weight. Such a tumor may largely distend the abdominal cavity and compress its contents. Upon section we often find a substance varying greatly in consistence, from almost fibrous hardness to cavities filled with grumous material broken down by fatty degeneration and often colored by hemorrhage. In the interior may be found remains of the pyramids and cortical substance occupying their usual relative positions, but as it were distended, these portions being surrounded by a much thicker layer of purely abnormal neoplasm, probably connected with the capsule and its surrounding fat. In other cases all traces of normal form and structure may have disappeared. The microscopic structure of such a growth presents no peculiarity except so far as the arrangement of cells in the normal gland may be followed to a certain extent in the less-altered portions of the tumor. Besides this total destruction of the kidney, it is not uncommon to find nodules involving a part of one or both the organs, and more or less distinctly marked off from the healthy portion.

The origin of sarcomata involving the kidneys may be the subperitoneal cellular tissue or the neighboring organs. As a primary disease sarcoma of the kidneys is very rare.

True cancer or carcinoma of the kidney is not a common disease, and is said to have been found 12 times in 447 cases of cancer of various organs. It may be primary or secondary, and a description of the gross appearances would be essentially the same as that of the sarcoma. The tumor does not, however, usually attain so large a size, and the amount of degeneration of neighboring organs and of ulceration is greater. Calculi are often found in cancerous kidneys.

The SYMPTOMS produced by either sarcoma or carcinoma may be none at all for a time. Dull pains in the loins or referred to the hypochondrium--which, however, from their indefiniteness can have but little diagnostic importance--are among the early phenomena. Pains like nephritic colic may appear. The urine usually shows little of importance. There may be sympathetic disturbance of micturition, but unless hemorrhage occurs there is not likely to be anything in the urine discoverable by the microscope to fix the nature of the trouble. Fragments of cancer-structure in the very rare cases in which they are said to have been found would of course be conclusive, but evidence based on the alleged discovery of cancer-cells in the urine must be received with the utmost caution, recollecting the great variety of shapes and sizes assumed by the epithelium of the urinary passages. Hæmaturia is a symptom occurring in only a portion of the cases, its appearance in a given case evidently depending on the way in which the tumor invades the kidney and increases in size. If growing in such a way as to compress the ureter at an early stage before any erosion of the mucous membrane has taken place, blood, even if set free in the pelvis, cannot reach the bladder. If hæmaturia is present before any tumor can be felt, it has {62} only a subordinate value, but if occurring after the discovery of such a tumor, the combination is of the highest significance. At a later period all the symptoms of compression of other abdominal viscera arise--anorexia, vomiting, jaundice, oedema, ascites, emaciation, and death.

When a tumor has become evident, it is to be diagnosticated from cystic disease and from hydro-nephrosis, with which it agrees in position and possibly in form. From the former of these its hardness and rapid growth, the invasion of other organs, and the cachexia will serve to distinguish it. Hæmaturia is not present in cystic disease. From hydro-nephrosis or pyo-nephrosis the diagnosis has already been stated. On the right side it might not in every case be easy to distinguish a morbid growth of the kidney from one affecting the liver, and a similar difficulty might arise on the other side with the spleen. The diagnosis is to be made by a careful location of the tumor by palpation and percussion and the absence of symptoms likely to occur in connection with affections of the organs named. In children psoas abscess and degeneration of the lumbar lymphatic glands should also be considered.

A sarcoma of the kidney has been mistaken and punctured for an empyema. A sarcoma behind the kidney, pushing it forward, is very difficult to distinguish from a similar growth affecting the organ itself, especially as it is likely to give rise to signs of renal irritation discoverable by the microscope. A slight pyelitis, distinguished by pus and the absence of any cellular elements to indicate an origin at a lower point, has been observed in such a case.

The results of exploratory puncture have been before alluded to. If a piece can be brought away large enough to be examined microscopically, it may settle the diagnosis, not only as to a malignant growth, but also as to its kind.

The distinction between carcinoma and sarcoma cannot always be made during life, nor indeed, without a microscopical examination, after death. It is of importance chiefly with reference to prognosis after operation for removal of the organ. A more rapid growth, a greater tendency to invade other organs, and a more marked cachexia would speak in favor of carcinoma, while a tumor gradually attaining a very large size, and not spreading beyond the kidney and its immediate envelopes, is more likely to be a sarcoma.

There is no TREATMENT known to be of value in cancer or sarcoma of the kidney, except so far as it may diminish pain or regulate the secretions. Surgically, removal of the diseased organ is the only expedient to be thought of. Although nephrectomy has been shown to be a perfectly practicable operation, and one that is usually well borne when the other kidney is sound, it has not proved very successful with malignant growths, even as a temporary expedient. This is partly at least to be accounted for by the difficulties lying in the way of diagnosis in the earlier stages, and the reluctance with which so serious an operation would naturally be resorted to until hopes based either on the uncertainties of diagnosis or mistaken reliance on medical treatment have been given up. Cases, however, have been reported where patients have recovered from the operation, and the disease has not returned for some months. When an operation has been resorted to, the tumor has usually become too large to be extracted through the loin, and laparotomy has been the course {63} pursued. According to Billroth,[22] out of 33 operations for tumors of the kidney, 13 have been cured.

[Footnote 22: Mittheil. der Aerzte in Nieder Oesterreich, Bd. x. p. 161 et seq.]

Cysts.

Three kinds of cysts are met with in the kidney besides those connected with the growth of parasites.

Kidneys congenitally affected with cystic degeneration contain a large number of sacs lined with a vascular membrane, among the partitions of which are found the remains of secreting structure. Both kidneys are equally affected, and are enlarged and more or less lobulated. They are occasionally so large as to constitute an obstacle to labor, and various operative procedures, even evisceration, have been required to accomplish the delivery of the foetus affected. The cysts are filled with fluid of various degrees of darkness of color from almost perfect limpidity to almost black. The fluid in the smaller cysts, at least, contains some of the urinary solids. The slighter degrees of this affection do not render a child necessarily non-viable, but with the larger some accident is likely to happen.

The formation of these cysts has been referred to an intra-uterine chronic nephritis, but another theory accounts for them by a vice of development. The fact that when the lesion is unilateral, as sometimes happens, there is apt to be a deficiency of some other part of the genito-urinary apparatus on the same side, and that several infants with cystic degeneration have been born of the same mother, speaks strongly in favor of the latter theory.

Serous cysts of later origin do not usually attain so large a size, or rather the kidney does not, on account of their smaller number. They are lined with a thinner membrane, and their contents are nearly clear, but coagulable, comprising uric acid, carbonate of lime, and cholesterin. Occasionally a single cyst attains considerable dimensions and produces by its pressure atrophy of part of the kidney. These cysts are supposed to arise in consequence of the blocking of a tube.

The third class of cysts closely resemble the first in appearance and in form, and contain more or less serous or gelatinous fluid, with albumen, blood-corpuscles, and pus, as well as the peculiar colloid bodies previously mentioned. They undoubtedly arise from the distension of tubes and of Malpighian bodies. These cysts are usually associated with chronic interstitial nephritis, and in fact they are rarely absent in cases of this kind, although the extreme degree--that is, where the cysts assume the most prominent position while the contracting nephritis falls into the background--are less common. In these latter cases the organ may be almost transformed into a mass of rounded bodies somewhat resembling a bunch of grapes.

The SYMPTOMS of the first two of these conditions--that is, of the cysts which are not connected with an active nephritis and attract attention simply as tumors--depend on the pressure they exert; and a diagnosis is to be made by a knowledge of their history and by the rules already given. The symptoms and diagnosis of the third variety are involved in those of chronic interstitial nephritis.

{64} There is no reason to suppose that any drug has any therapeutic action on such kidneys, so far as the cysts are concerned. It should always be remembered that a kidney may contain a large number of cysts, and yet scattered portions of secreting substance enough be left to carry on the function indefinitely.

It might under some circumstances be justifiable to remove a cystic kidney on account of the pressure exercised on other organs, but as the cysts do not increase rapidly in size, punctures several times repeated, so as to empty a number of them, would in most cases prove as effectual an operation, and, what is of greater importance, would not involve the loss of any portion, even if small, of secreting structure which may be left.

Tuberculosis.

The tubercles which are found in the kidney in cases of general miliary tuberculosis have usually no clinical interest, since the kidney is not, even in children, one of the points where tubercular localization is most intense, and renal tubercles are consequently but little advanced when death takes place from the extension of the disease in other organs. They present no symptoms which are perceptible among the much graver ones attending the progress of the disease elsewhere.

In the disease known as tubercle of the kidney, caseous nephritis, or nephro-phthisis, masses of caseous material are deposited in the renal parenchyma which may soften, break down, and communicate with each other and with the calices and pelvis. In some cases it is probable that the disease originates in or immediately underneath the mucous membrane of the urinary passages. This process of breaking down continues much in the same way as that of a phthisical lung, until the kidney becomes little more than a hardened, irregular, knobby shell enclosing a ragged, ulcerated cavity with thickened, pus-secreting walls and filled with pus, more or less blood, and débris of kidney-structure and tubercle. In such portions of renal substance as may remain it is not unusual to find miliary tubercle. If obstruction of the ureter exists, a pyo-nephrosis may exist in addition. Rupture into the peritoneal cavity or into the intestine has occurred.

It is probable that in this affection are included two processes, differing in pathology and etiology and to some extent in clinical history. It is probable that true tubercle may originate in the kidney as a result of either tubercle or cheesy inflammation elsewhere, as in the lungs, bodies of the vertebræ, or scrofulous glands. In this case there are no marked symptoms until the process of softening and breaking down has reached the mucous membrane of the pelvis. Besides this, renal phthisis sometimes succeeds, as a more local invasion, to tubercle or cheesy inflammation of the urinary passages, and in this case the symptoms appear simply as aggravations of those already present and depending upon ureteritis and pyelitis. Renal phthisis is seldom if ever an independent disease. It is often associated, besides the affections already named as standing in etiological relationship with it, with cheesy inflammation of the testicle, vesiculæ seminales, and much less frequently of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes.

{65} The DIAGNOSIS of tubercle in the kidney before it has reached the pelvis is probably impossible. Pain in the back or slight albuminuria, as has been already stated, is of no diagnostic value except as pointing to some renal irritation, as to the cause of which it tells nothing. In the presence of tubercle elsewhere it might be regarded as suspicious.

After cavities have become connected with the pelvis or have extended from it, the symptoms become more marked. In the urine are to be found pus, some blood, epithelium of the urinary passages and often of the kidneys, in many cases in the form of casts; and it is claimed that masses of caseous matter as large perhaps as the head of a pin may be found, which will of course make the diagnosis almost a matter of certainty. If the urine containing such a deposit is acid, it is almost certain that the lesion is mainly in the kidney and that the bladder is but slightly if at all affected. It is also stated that the bacillus of tubercle has been found. The presence of this parasite will not only testify as to the presence of the clinical condition known as phthisis of the kidney, but will also make it sure that the affection depends upon tubercle in the strictest pathological sense, and will influence the prognosis accordingly. Inoculation of purulent sediment from the urine of a patient suffering from tuberculosis of the urinary passages has produced tubercle in the iris of the rabbit. This procedure has been suggested as a means of diagnosis as to the character of a chronic catarrh of these passages before the appearance of tubercle elsewhere.[23]

[Footnote 23: Ebstein, Centralblatt für die Med. Wiss., 1882, p. 918, from Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., xxxi. S. 63.]

If pyelitis have already been present, the change in the appearance of the urine will be less characteristic, but there may be a marked aggravation of symptoms when the contents of softened masses are added to the secretions of the mucous surface. There is likely to be much fluctuation in the quantity of débris present from day to day. Urinary fever of the hectic or subcontinued type, with anorexia, nausea, dry tongue, and diarrhoea, is present. In some cases the enlarged and irregular kidney may be felt.

The PROGNOSIS of this condition is in the highest degree unfavorable, although the finding of cicatrices in kidneys where symptoms of renal phthisis have been present suggests that it is possible for caseous masses in these organs, as well as in the lungs, to undergo absorption and healing.

The TREATMENT must be, in the first place, constitutional by tonics and reconstituents, and local by the use of such antiseptics as are eliminated through the kidney, as boric or benzoic acid or the benzoates. But little, however, is to be expected from it.

Parasites.

The most important parasite which is known to inhabit the kidney is the immature tapeworm of the dog, or Tænia echinococcus. It is decidedly rare in this country to meet with this affection in any part of the body, and as the kidney is not one of the organs most likely to be chosen as its habitat, the condition is not one which comes often under the observation of physicians.

{66} It is hardly necessary to describe here the structure or contents of the hydatid cyst which forms the home of the parasite, nor its etiology, since these topics belong to general pathology, and the cyst is the same in whatever organ it may be seated. When it affects the kidney, it is usually the left--more frequently that of a man between thirty and forty years of age.

A hydatid cyst may be situated upon any part of the kidney. If small, it may never make its presence known. A larger one may give rise to those vague pains in the back found with so many diseases of the kidney and characteristic of none of them. A cyst may open in any direction, but is more likely to empty into the pelvis of the kidney. When this happens, the smaller cysts or pieces of the larger ones often enter the ureter and give rise to renal colic, and possibly, later, to a pyelitis. Other points of discharge are the intestines, the lungs, or the abdominal walls.

After a hydatid cyst has reached a certain size its presence may be recognized by palpation, but the diagnosis between it and other tumors of the kidney must be very difficult unless characteristic fragments make their appearance in the urine at the same time that the tumor diminishes in size, or unless they can be obtained by puncture. The hydatid thrill, if it can be obtained, will be an important factor in diagnosis.

The TREATMENT of this affection in the kidney presents no special points of difference from that of similar cysts in the liver; with this important exception, that besides punctures with large and small trocars, incisions, electrolysis, etc., the resource of complete extirpation still remains. Cures have been obtained by repeated punctures and subsequent suppuration, and by partial removal through the abdominal walls and subsequent drainage.

Among the parasites of the kidney it is customary to mention the Strongylus gigas, which is a worm somewhat resembling the ascaris and inhabiting the pelvis. It is not very infrequent among the Carnivora, but since only seven cases have been described in the human subject since the seventeenth century, and only a part of these are admitted as genuine by certain authors, its diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment must depend more upon theory than upon experience. The diagnosis is to be made, if at all, on the basis of a pyelitis and the discovery of the eggs of the parasite in the urine.

The Distoma hæmatobium is a parasite found chiefly in the blood-vessels, and especially those of the portal system. It is occasionally, however, met with in the veins of the kidney and also in the urinary passages. Its eggs pass into the pelvis and ureters, and there begin their development, which, however, is soon arrested, as they rapidly perish in the urine.

These parasites appear to produce either by a direct action or by the occlusion of vessels, ulceration, and hemorrhages from the urinary mucous membrane, including that of the bladder. These effects are supposed to be due to the blocking of the smaller vessels by the worms themselves. An adherent deposit consisting of masses of distoma eggs and grains of uric acid sometimes forms in grayish-yellow patches within the ureter, and gives rise to stricture, with dilatation and hydro-nephrosis above. This parasite has been considered the cause of the endemic hæmaturia of hot countries, but as cases of this affection have been carefully examined {67} for the distoma with negative results, it must be considered as only one among several causes. Strongyli are said to have been found in some of the cases.

Nothing is known of an appropriate TREATMENT for the distoma. An abundant flow of urine might perhaps carry off more rapidly such individuals as have found their way into the urinary passages, and, considering the character of the deposit described above as causing stoppage of the ureter, treatment directed against the uric-acid diathesis might diminish the risk of this particular form of trouble.

Diseases of the Ureters.

Absence of the ureter may take place when one kidney is congenitally absent, though this is not an absolute rule, since the ureter may terminate above in a rounded sac. When a single kidney exists, consisting of the fusion of two, there are usually two ureters opening in the usual position. In one instance, in which only one kidney and one ureter were present, the ureter opened into the bladder on the side opposite to that upon which the kidney was situated.

Not very infrequently two ureters exist in connection with a normal kidney, remaining separate for the whole or a part of their course to the bladder. This condition is merely a sort of exaggeration of the separation between the two branches of the renal pelvis.

A few instances have been noted where a ureter or a fistula connected therewith has opened outside of the bladder at a point near the urethra. This malformation gave rise to symptoms of incontinence of urine, and in one case was remedied by operation.

Abnormal openings of the ureter into the uterus and vagina as the results of pelvic inflammations, and upon the external surface as the result of wounds, have occurred. They are more or less amenable to surgical treatment, and belong to the domain of surgery and gynecology rather than to medicine.

Occlusion of the ureter has already been spoken of in connection with the hydro-nephrosis and pyelitis to which it gives rise. This occlusion results from pressure exerted either at the vesical orifice from cystitis; a little higher up from malignant disease connected with the uterus or a fibroma surrounding the ureter; from contracting adhesions resulting from pelvic inflammation; or from sharp flexions of the tube itself, perhaps also from valvular folds of the mucous membrane. Sometimes its obliteration seems to be the result of old inflammation of the mucous membrane of the ureter itself in connection with that of the renal pelvis. In the latter case the occlusion may be complete at several points, while at others a collection of dry, cheesy, or putty-like material occupies the cavity of the ureter as well as the pelvis of the atrophied kidney.

Cancer is not known primarily to invade the ureter.

Tubercle is not infrequently found in the form of small granulations in cases of general tuberculosis, and it is possible that this deposit may be among the earlier ones; hence a chronic catarrh of the urinary passages without some known cause should be looked upon with suspicion, {68} and the development of phthisis as far as possible guarded against. The presence of these small tubercles in the ureter, if none are present or no ulceration exists in the kidney, are of little or no local importance.

Inflammation of the ureter often exists in connection with cystitis and pyelitis, and in fact constitutes the means by which the higher urinary passages become gradually involved in the diseases below.

The DIAGNOSIS of this condition as a distinct disease is hardly possible, and is besides unnecessary, as the treatment to be directed thereto would be included in that called for by the more extensive and obvious inflammation of the kidney and bladder.

{69}

DISEASES OF THE PARENCHYMA OF THE KIDNEYS, AND PERINEPHRITIS.

BY FRANCIS DELAFIELD, M.D.

CHRONIC CONGESTION OF THE KIDNEY.

SYNONYMS.--Passive congestion; Cyanotic induration.

It is now generally recognized that we must separate from the other forms of kidney disease the condition of chronic congestion. Since Traube first called attention to the causation and characters of this lesion, all authors have recognized its special character, although there are still minor differences of opinion concerning it.

ETIOLOGY.--Chronic congestion of the kidney may be produced by any mechanical cause which interferes with the escape of the blood from the renal veins. Thrombi of the veins, tumors pressing on the veins, emphysema of the lungs, hydro-pneumothorax, pericarditis,--all may produce this lesion. As to how often it is produced by the pregnant uterus is still a question. But the most common cause of all is organic disease of the heart. Practically, the lesion comes under consideration as a complication of heart disease, of aneurism of the arch of the aorta, and of emphysema of the lungs.

LESIONS.--If the congestion has not existed for a long time, we find the kidneys increased in size and their weight great in proportion to their size. They are of an unnatural hardness--a hardness which can be imitated by injecting the blood-vessels of a normal kidney with water. The capsules are not adherent, the surfaces of the kidneys are smooth. Both the cortical and pyramidal portions are congested, and this congestion gives the entire organs a peculiar reddish, livid color. No lesions are found in the Malpighian bodies, tubes, stroma, or blood-vessels, except that the epithelium of the convoluted tubes may be a little swollen.

If the congestion has lasted for a longer time, the kidneys may continue to be large or they may be somewhat reduced in size; the weight remains out of proportion to the size. There are the same unnatural color and consistence. The capsules are now often slightly adherent and the surfaces of the kidneys finely nodular. In the cortex there may be patches of new connective tissue enclosing atrophied tubules, or there may be a more diffuse growth of connective tissue separating the tubes from each other. In the convoluted tubules the epithelial cells may be swollen and finely granular, or very much swollen and coarsely granular, so as to nearly fill the tubes, or flattened so that the cavities of the tubes are {70} unnaturally large. The tubes may also contain cast-matter and detached and broken epithelial cells. The capsules of the Malpighian bodies may be a little thickened and the capsular endothelium swollen. In the pyramids the epithelium of the straight tubes may be granular and detached, and there is often cast-matter in the looped tubes. It is difficult to tell whether there is any real change in the veins of the kidney.

As a result of the same interference with the venous circulation, similar changes are found in other parts of the body--in the lungs, liver, spleen, stomach, small intestine, and pia mater. In all these organs there is, first, simply a venous congestion, then after a time structural changes are added. Formation of new connective tissue and of new functional cells of the particular organ, degeneration of these cells, dilatation and tortuousness of the small veins and capillaries, are regularly present. The kidney lesion, therefore, is only one of a number of lesions, all dependent on a common mechanical cause.

SYMPTOMS.--Of the persons who die with chronic congestion of the kidney, a large number present marked symptoms during life, but it is difficult to determine how largely these symptoms are due to the congestion of the kidney.

A congestion of the kidney of only a few days' duration does not seem usually to give rise to any symptoms. Even if such a congestion is prolonged to two or three weeks, as we see in some cases of hydro-pneumothorax from perforation of the lung, there may be no renal symptoms and no changes in the urine. On the other hand, it is extremely rare for organic heart disease or emphysema of the lungs to prove fatal without some disease of the kidneys.

The question is still further complicated by the fact that both in cardiac disease and emphysema there may be either chronic congestion of the kidney or chronic diffuse nephritis with the same symptoms.

After excluding the cases of cardiac hypertrophy secondary to kidney disease and the cardiac diseases with complications, I find in my casebooks 137 cases in which the patients died simply from heart disease, changes in the viscera due to the disturbance of the venous circulation, and kidney disease. Of these cases, 84 presented the lesions of chronic diffuse nephritis; 53 were in the state of chronic congestion. Of the cases of chronic diffuse nephritis, 27 were large white kidneys, 29 atrophied kidneys, 28 could not be classed as either large white or atrophied. In these cases there existed during life certain regular symptoms. There were changes in the urine, dropsy, headache, delirium, convulsions, coma, dyspnoea, vomiting, cough, hæmoptysis, loss of flesh and strength.

As regards the quantity of the urine, there was a very great variety until shortly before the patient's death; then the urine was usually diminished in amount, sometimes suppressed. A very marked decrease in the amount of urine was more constant in the cases of chronic diffuse nephritis than in those of chronic congestion. But in several cases both of chronic diffuse nephritis and of chronic congestion the patients passed from thirty to forty ounces of urine up to the time of their deaths.

Albumen and casts were often present--nearly always with the large white kidneys, not nearly as constantly with atrophied kidneys or with {71} the cases of chronic congestion. In cases of chronic congestion the albumen was usually in small amount and often not accompanied with casts.

The specific gravity of the urine was apt to be low with chronic diffuse nephritis and high with chronic congestion, but there were many exceptions to this rule. With large white kidneys, atrophied kidneys, simple diffuse nephritis, and chronic congestion the specific gravity might be either normal, high, or low up to the time of death.

Transudation of the serum into the subcutaneous connective tissue and the serous cavities was a very constant symptom. It was a little more constant, and perhaps usually reached a greater degree, in the cases of chronic diffuse nephritis than in those of chronic congestion.

Headache, delirium, convulsions, and coma occurred in a moderate number of all the cases.

Dyspnoea was a very frequent symptom in all the cases.

Vomiting was also present in many cases.

Cough, with mucus or muco-purulent sputa, sometimes with hæmoptysis, was a very common symptom.

Many of the patients lost flesh and strength and became anæmic.

COURSE OF THE DISEASE.--There is a great deal of similarity in the histories of patients who suffer from the combination of cardiac and renal disease. There is first the history of the heart disease. A patient goes on for a number of years, sometimes apparently perfectly well and unconscious that his heart is diseased, sometimes more or less troubled with cough, cardiac dyspnoea, and palpitation. But after a longer or shorter time there is a marked change for the worse. Either gradually or rapidly the cough becomes worse, the dyspnoea greater, the functions of the stomach are disturbed, the patient loses flesh and strength, dropsy is developed, and finally cerebral symptoms. Some die suddenly, some with exhaustion, some with dropsy, some with dyspnoea, some comatose. It is always possible for the patient to recover from the first attack of this kind, sometimes even from a second, but eventually there comes an attack which proves fatal.

The most striking cases are those in which cardiac disease exists for many years without giving any symptoms, and then the symptoms are developed rapidly. Such persons, although they have organic disease of the heart, may seem to enjoy perfect health. They may even be able to take long walks, climb mountains, or perform laborious work. On some day they suddenly become sick. Sometimes the exciting cause of the attack is a pleurisy or a pericarditis, sometimes there is no apparent cause. The first symptom is usually dyspnoea, and this is not an ordinary cardiac dyspnoea. It is a very distressing and constant dyspnoea, which does not allow the patients to lie down. They pass days and nights sitting in a chair, fatigued, ready to sleep, but kept awake by the constant dyspnoea. Some of these patients will die at the end of a few days; others live longer and develop dropsy, anæmia, and cerebral symptoms.

When the chronic congestion of the kidneys is secondary to emphysema of the lungs, the course of affairs is much the same. The patient goes on for a number of years with the ordinary symptoms of emphysema, and then gradually or suddenly becomes worse. Dyspnoea, dropsy, {72} anæmia, cerebral symptoms make their appearance, and the case terminates in the same way as the cardiac cases.

DURATION.--How long congestion of the kidneys may exist without producing symptoms it is hard to say. Certainly it may exist for a number of days without any apparent disturbance of the functions of the kidney. Whether it may exist for a time, give symptoms, and then disappear, is uncertain; the rule seems to be that the lesion, when once well established, persists up to the death of the patient.

TREATMENT.--It must be acknowledged that we can hardly hope for a cure of the lesion of the kidneys, and that even alleviation of the symptoms is not always possible. The mechanical cause of the obstruction to the venous circulation cannot be removed, and it is not only the functions of the kidneys that are disturbed, but those of the lungs, liver, spleen, stomach, and small intestine. Still, we can do something. The iodide of potassium, convallaria, caffeine, and digitalis may be of service in equalizing and strengthening the heart's action, and at the same time act as diuretics. Inhalations of the nitrite of amyl dilate the arteries and capillaries, and so unload the veins. Opium is the great remedy for the dyspnoea, although it must be given with caution. Inhalations of ether may render the patient's last days more comfortable.

BRIGHT'S DISEASE OF THE KIDNEYS.

After considering separately the condition of chronic congestion of the kidney, we find that there are a group of kidney diseases characterized by certain rational symptoms, changes in the urine, and alterations in the structure of the kidneys which are popularly known by the name of Bright's disease.

Various attempts have been made to classify these cases.

1. All the kidney lesions have been supposed to correspond to the stages of an inflammatory process--a stage of congestion, a second stage of exudation, and a third stage of contraction.

2. The disease has been divided, according to its clinical symptoms, simply into acute and chronic Bright's disease.

3. The gross appearances have been taken as a standard, and the cases are classed as examples of large white kidney, atrophied kidney, waxy kidney, etc.

4. The kidneys have been compared to mucous membranes, and authors speak of catarrhal and croupous nephritis.

5. The disease has been classified, according to the particular part of the kidney affected, into parenchymatous, tubular, glomerular, interstitial, and diffuse nephritis.

With our present knowledge of the subject it seems to me most convenient to speak of acute and chronic parenchymatous nephritis and acute and chronic diffuse nephritis. I include under the head of parenchymatous nephritis all those kidneys in which the lesions are strictly confined to the epithelial cells lining the tubules and the capsules of the {73} glomeruli; under the head of diffuse nephritis, those kidneys in which the lesions involve the tubes, stroma, glomeruli, and arteries; under the head of interstitial nephritis, those kidneys in which the essential morbid changes are in the stroma.

This classification seems to me to be theoretically correct, but yet I must admit that from a clinical standpoint nearly all the cases may be conveniently arranged into the two classes of acute and chronic Bright's disease.

GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF BRIGHT'S DISEASE.--There are a certain number of symptoms common to all the varieties of Bright's disease, and it is convenient to consider them before going on to the special description of each of these varieties. These symptoms are--

Changes in the Urine.--Healthy adults usually secrete during the twenty-four hours from 40 to 50 ounces of urine of a light-yellow color, of acid reaction, of a specific gravity of 1015 to 1025, and holding in solution a number of excrementitious substances. Small amounts of albumen and of sugar seem to be, in some persons, physiological ingredients of the urine.

In most cases of Bright's disease the quantity of the urine at some time in the course of the disease deviates from the normal standard. Either the urine is increased in amount or diminished or suppressed, and in the course of the same case the urine may be at one time increased, at another diminished.

We find in healthy persons that the quantity of urine varies with the amount of fluids that are imbibed and with the condition of the skin and the bowels--that nervous influences and certain drugs will increase or diminish the amount of urine. Physiologists teach us that the amount of urine excreted varies with the degree of the blood-pressure in the renal arteries or with the rapidity with which the blood circulates through these arteries.

The urine may be very much increased or diminished in amount as the result of various morbid conditions. Scanty urine or suppression of urine is observed in the course of acute parenchymatous and acute diffuse nephritis and in the early stages of the development of the large white kidney. During the course of any case of chronic Bright's disease there are usually periods during which the urine is scanty or suppressed, especially toward the close of the disease. The kidney lesions which complicate scarlet fever, yellow fever, and cholera are often attended with suppression of urine. Any diseases accompanied by a well-marked rise of temperature are apt to be associated with a diminution in the amount of urine. Injuries to the urethra, even very slight ones, may be followed by complete suppression of urine, without any changes in the kidneys except congestion.

Marked diminution in the amount of urine occurring in the course of acute and chronic Bright's disease is usually associated with the development of cerebral symptoms--headache, restlessness, delirium, muscular twitchings, convulsions, stupor, and coma. Such a change in the amount of the urine usually lasts only a few days and may terminate fatally, or the quantity of urine will increase and the patient get better. There are, however, cases in which the suppression of urine lasts for several days without the development of uræmic symptoms. Whitelaw[1] relates a {74} case of suppression of urine lasting for twenty-five days in a boy eight years old. The suppression began twelve weeks after an attack of scarlatina. There were no uræmic symptoms, and the child recovered completely.

[Footnote 1: Lancet, September, 1877.]

The suppression of urine due to injuries of the urethra gives rise to symptoms of great prostration--rigors, vomiting, and collapse--rather than to uræmic symptoms.

Suppression of urine is also produced by occlusion of the ureters by calculi, new growths, etc. It is a curious fact that in these cases the patients continue to live for a number of days (9 to 11, Roberts), and no uræmic symptoms are developed until a few hours before death.

The most marked examples of persistent increase in the quantity of urine are afforded by cases of diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus. But a daily excretion of from 70 to 100 ounces is common enough with atrophied kidneys, with large white kidneys, and with waxy kidneys.

It is exceedingly difficult to form any rational idea of the causes of the variations in the amount of urine in the course of the same case, and in different cases with similar kidney lesions. Various explanations have been attempted, ascribing these changes to the hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart, to changes in blood-pressure, to lesions of the arteries, to changes in the composition of the blood, to lesions in particular portions of the kidneys. But any one who tries to apply these explanations to any number of actual cases will find many difficulties.

The most evident causes of diminution in the amount of urine seem to be an abnormal condition of the circulation of the blood and either congestion or structural changes of the kidneys.

The specific gravity of the urine varies from day to day and from hour to hour in the same person, having a regular relation to the quantity of urine passed. But a long-continued deviation from the normal specific gravity is usually an evidence of disease. The highest specific gravities obtain with saccharine diabetes. Abnormally high specific gravities also often occur in the urine of patients with a high temperature, with chronic congestion of the kidneys, and in some cases of acute and chronic parenchymatous nephritis.

Low specific gravities are the rule in diabetes insipidus and with acute and chronic diffuse nephritis. In chronic diffuse nephritis the specific gravity remains low even if the quantity of urine passed is very small. When there is almost suppression of urine from occlusion of the ureters the urine that is passed is of low specific gravity.

These changes in specific gravity correspond of course to the amount of solid matter in solution in the urine, and may depend upon a change in the relative proportion of the fluid and solid constituents of the urine, or upon an absolute increase or decrease of the solid portions.

Any change in the absolute amount of solid matter excreted in the urine must depend upon changes in the composition of the blood, or in the circulation of the blood through the kidneys, or in the structure of the kidneys themselves. All these three conditions seem to exist in Bright's disease, and either together or separately may diminish the daily excretion of solid matter.

It is not necessary here to enumerate the different solid constituents of {75} the urine. A change in the amount of many of them merely indicates disorders of the digestive process. Urea seems to be the most important of the excretory substances, and its quantity is regularly diminished both in acute and chronic Bright's disease.

Blood is found in the urine in a considerable number of cases of Bright's disease. If it is present in large quantities, the urine will be of a reddish color; if in smaller quantities, of a smoky color; and if in still smaller quantities, the color will not be changed. Blood is found regularly with acute diffuse nephritis, with the more severe cases of acute parenchymatous nephritis, with the exacerbations of chronic diffuse nephritis, and with suppurative nephritis. The blood seems to be derived from the tufts of vessels in the Malpighian bodies.

Albumen in the urine is a very common symptom of renal disease, but it is not confined to such cases. It is also found without any structural lesions of the kidneys.

1. There are some individuals whose urine, for many years, will contain small quantities of albumen, and yet their general health is good and they never develop any renal symptoms. In some of these cases the urine is always somewhat diminished in quantity, and in some there is also a little sugar in the urine.

2. In a large number of perfectly healthy persons small amounts of albumen will appear as a temporary condition after muscular exercise, sea-bathing, eating certain kinds of food, etc.

3. Albumen may be present in considerable amount for weeks or months in the urine of young persons, and then disappear altogether. The general health may continue good or be somewhat depreciated. After a time the albumen disappears and the patients have no further trouble.

4. General convulsions, concussion of the brain, and transfusion of blood often produce a temporary albuminuria.

Some observers believe that albumen is always present in the urine, but in such small amounts as to elude the ordinary tests.

Both physiological and pathological albuminuria is most constant and abundant after eating.

The albumen is not all of the same character. Most of it is serum-albumen, but with it is a smaller amount of globulin and sometimes of peptones. As yet the serum-albumen seems to be of the principal practical importance.

Pathological albuminuria is most constant and the albumen is most abundant with acute and chronic parenchymatous nephritis, with acute diffuse nephritis, and with the large white variety of chronic diffuse nephritis. It is least constant and least abundant with the atrophic variety of chronic diffuse nephritis, with some waxy kidneys, with interstitial nephritis, and with chronic congestion of the kidney. A variety of explanations have been given to account for the production of albumen by diseased kidneys, but none of them are very satisfactory.

The albuminuria has been ascribed to disease of the epithelium of the Malpighian bodies; to increase of the blood-pressure within the renal arteries, either with or without disease of the arterial walls; to slowing of the blood-current in the arteries; to diminution of the blood-pressure in the arteries; to congestion of the renal veins; to changes in the {76} composition of the blood; to changes in the epithelium of the renal tubules.

For practical purposes it is to be remembered that large amounts of albumen regularly indicate structural changes in the kidneys; that small amounts of albumen are found without any kidney lesions, with chronic congestion of the kidney, and with chronic diffuse nephritis; that chronic diffuse nephritis may exist without albuminuria for a long time.

In many cases of kidney disease we find in the urine bodies of cylindrical shape called casts. The same bodies are also found within the tubules of diseased kidneys. Concerning the nature and origin of these bodies we are still ignorant. We only know that they are formed within the kidney tubules and are carried thence into the urine. With the exception of the blood-casts, which are composed simply of a number of blood-globules pressed together, all casts seem to be formed of a peculiar homogeneous hyaline substance to which other elements may be added. Hyaline casts are composed entirely of such material. Waxy casts are formed of the same substance, which becomes denser. Epithelial casts are made by the adhesion of epithelial cells to the surface of hyaline casts. Nucleated, granular, and fatty casts are hyaline casts with the fragments of degenerated epithelium incorporated in them.

Occasionally hyaline casts are found in the urine of healthy persons. They also occur as a temporary condition after severe muscular exertion, with typhlitis, with renal calculi, and with jaundice. Most frequently, however, they are associated with structural disease of the kidneys. Usually they are found in albuminous urine, and in proportion to the amount of albumen, but we may find casts without albumen and albumen without casts.

With chronic congestion of the kidney the casts are hyaline and few in number. With acute parenchymatous nephritis there are hyaline, granular, nucleated, and epithelial casts. With chronic parenchymatous nephritis there are hyaline, granular, and nucleated casts. With acute diffuse nephritis there are blood, epithelial, hyaline, granular, nucleated, and fatty casts. With chronic diffuse nephritis there are hyaline, waxy, granular, fatty, nucleated, and epithelial casts.

An accumulation of serum in the subcutaneous connective tissue, in the serous cavities, and in the lungs is one of the regular symptoms of Bright's disease. It usually appears first in the feet or in the face. Such dropsy is said to be due to a low specific gravity of the blood-serum; to the loss of albumen; to the scanty elimination of urine; to hydræmia plethora; or to changes in the walls of the blood-vessels.

The functions of the stomach are often disordered, either with or without the existence of chronic gastritis. Loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, oppression after eating, etc. continue and grow worse throughout the disease. Vomiting is also a frequent concomitant of the so-called uræmic attacks.

Diarrhoea often occurs with dropsy and a scanty excretion of urine, and may then be of service to the patient, but it sometimes becomes very profuse, rebellious to treatment, and is of positive injury.

Dyspnoea associated with Bright's disease seems to occur in several different ways. It may be of mechanical origin from oedema of the lungs or from hydrothorax. It may be a purely nervous phenomenon, {77} or it may depend upon a complicating heart lesion. The nervous dyspnoea seems to be allied to the uræmic vomiting and cerebral symptoms; it is often most distressing.

In the course of chronic Bright's disease disturbances of vision occur dependent on three different conditions: (1) There may be a loss of vision, usually temporary, without any discoverable lesion of the eye. (2) There may be simple neuro-retinitis. (3) There may be the characteristic nephritic retinitis with hemorrhages and fatty degeneration of the retina. These two forms of retinitis are often the first symptoms of renal disease.

Neuralgic pains, most frequently referred to some part of the head or face, but also to other parts of the body, are prominent symptoms in some cases.

The Blood.--Both in acute and chronic Bright's disease the patients often become markedly anæmic and pale. This change in the color of the patient corresponds to an alteration of the composition of the blood with the details of which we are not as yet fully acquainted. The blood seems to be thinner and more watery.

Cerebral Symptoms.--Headache, drowsiness, stupor, sleeplessness, delirium, coma, muscular twitchings, and general convulsions are of frequent occurrence. The headache and drowsiness may continue during the course of the disease for many months. The stupor, sleeplessness, delirium, coma, muscular twitchings, and general convulsions are apt to occur in attacks which last for several days, and then pass away or terminate in the death of the patient. With such cerebral symptoms are often associated dyspnoea, vomiting, increased temperature, and diminution in the excretion of urine. The entire group of symptoms is commonly known by the name of uræmia.

It is a matter of great practical importance to determine the cause of these cerebral symptoms, for otherwise there can be no rational treatment of them. It is evident that such cerebral symptoms must depend upon anatomical changes in the brain or its membranes, or upon a change in the composition of the blood which circulates through the brain, or upon the quantity of blood supplied to the brain.

It is to be remembered that such cerebral symptoms occur most frequently with the atrophic form of chronic diffuse nephritis; that they are often the first symptom of renal disease; that the same person may have several such attacks, with no cerebral symptoms during the interval; that the urine is usually, but not always, diminished during the attack, and becomes more abundant when the attack ceases; that such attacks also occur with the chronic congestion of the kidney due to cardiac disease, in pregnant women without kidney disease, and with diseased arteries and high arterial tension without kidney disease.

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.

The composition of the blood is undoubtedly changed in most of the cases with cerebral symptoms. It is natural to look for such changes as {78} are due to perversion of the excretory function of the kidneys, and to ascribe the cerebral symptoms to the poisoning of the blood by urea, by urea transformed into carbonate of ammonia, or by the other excretory matters which should be eliminated by the urine. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that there is a very marked increase in the amount of urea contained in the blood in such cases. On the other hand, we find that suppression of urine with accumulation of urea in the blood may exist for a long time without cerebral symptoms if the suppression is due to obstruction of the ureters; that with chronic congestion of the kidney, puerperal convulsions, and diseased arteries urea is excreted in fair amount, although cerebral symptoms exist; and that even in cases of cerebral symptoms with chronic diffuse nephritis there may be no increase of urea in the blood.

In most of the cases with cerebral symptoms, however, there are other changes in the composition of the blood, concerning the exact nature of which we are still ignorant. In most cases of chronic Bright's disease the patients become pale and the blood is thin and watery; and this is also often the case with chronic congestion of the kidney and with diseased arteries. In pregnancy the quantity of blood is said to be increased: in cholera a considerable part of the fluid portions of the blood is lost.

Changes in the amount of blood in the brain may be due to lesions of the cerebral arteries or to contraction of these arteries; to changes in the arteries in other parts of the body; to organic disease or functional disorder of the heart; or to a change in the whole amount of blood contained in the body.

It seems to me probable that the so-called uræmic symptoms are most frequently due to disturbances of the circulation of blood. Such disturbances of the circulation produce in the brain cerebral symptoms; in the lungs, dyspnoea; in the stomach, vomiting; in the kidneys, suppression of urine.

With the atrophic form of chronic diffuse nephritis we have all the conditions necessary for an irregular circulation--hypertrophy of the left ventricle, diseased arteries, and hydræmic plethora. In the other cases with cerebral symptoms there are also conditions present capable of interfering with the circulation.

Acute Parenchymatous Nephritis.

PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY.--The lesions of acute parenchymatous nephritis vary with the intensity of the inflammatory process.

(1) Mild Cases.--The kidneys are of normal size and weight. The capsules are not adherent, the surface of the kidney is smooth, the cortex is of normal color or rather pale. The epithelial cells lining the convoluted tubes are swollen and granular.

(2) More Severe Cases.--The kidneys are increased in size. The cortex is thick and whitish, with white striæ extending in to the bases of the pyramids. The epithelium of both the convoluted and straight tubes and of the Malpighian bodies is swollen and granular. There is cast matter in the tubes. {79}

(3) The Most Severe Cases.--The increase in the size of the kidneys is still more marked. The epithelium of most of the tubes is not only swollen and granular, but is also in many tubes detached from their walls. A great deal of cast-matter, and sometimes blood, is found in the tubes. There are no changes in the stroma or in the blood-vessels of the kidneys.

ETIOLOGY.--Acute parenchymatous nephritis occurs both as a primary and secondary lesion. The idiopathic cases occur without assignable cause or after exposure to cold, and are not very common. The secondary cases are seen very frequently. They complicate a variety of other diseases. With pneumonia, typhus fever, and typhoid fever the nephritis is usually of mild type. With yellow fever and acute atrophy of the liver the nephritis is very severe. With scarlatina, diphtheria, pyæmia, peritonitis, phosphorus- and arsenic-poisoning the severity of the nephritis varies with the different cases.

SYMPTOMS.--(1) The Idiopathic Cases.--The urine is diminished in quantity and may be suppressed; its specific gravity continues nearly normal; it contains albumen, usually in large amounts, sometimes blood: in some cases very few casts are seen, in others there are large numbers of hyaline, granular, and nucleated casts.

As regards the other symptoms, it is convenient to divide the idiopathic cases into three classes. In the first class dropsy and anæmia are the most marked symptoms; with these there are loss of appetite and a depreciation in the general condition of the patient. In the second class cerebral symptoms are more prominent. There will be delirium, convulsions, stupor, coma, and with these persistent vomiting, dyspnoea, and great prostration, but no dropsy. The third class suffer from the symptoms of both the other classes. Dropsy, anæmia, loss of appetite, cerebral symptoms, vomiting, dyspnoea, and prostration are all present.

(2) The Secondary Cases.--The condition of the urine varies with the intensity of the nephritis. In the mild cases the urine is unchanged. In the more severe cases we find the urine diminished in quantity, containing albumen in varying amount, sometimes blood. Hyaline and granular casts are often present, but are not very numerous. Dropsy does not usually occur except with the parenchymatous nephritis of scarlatina. Nausea and vomiting are not infrequent, but it is often difficult to tell whether they are due to the primary disease or to the nephritis. Cerebral symptoms--convulsions, delirium, stupor, and coma--occur with the more severe cases.

DURATION.--(1) The Primary Cases.--The class of cases characterized by cerebral symptoms are of short duration. The bad cases die at the end of a few days, the milder cases recover within a few weeks. The class of cases characterized by dropsy last longer, often for several months.

(2) The Secondary Cases.--The renal symptoms continue during the course of the primary disease, and may disappear with the termination of this disease. But if the nephritis is severe the renal symptoms may continue for months after the primary disease has run its course. Albumen and casts are especially apt to persist for a long time. Such a persistence of the nephritis is especially apt to occur with scarlatina and diphtheria.

{80} PROGNOSIS.--(1) The Primary Cases.--The cases characterized by both dropsy and cerebral symptoms usually end fatally. The cases characterized by cerebral symptoms alone are also very apt to die. The cases characterized by dropsy and anæmia often get well, but the albumen and casts may persist for a long time, and the patient may have several attacks of such a nephritis.

(2) The Secondary Cases.--Here the prognosis varies with the intensity of the nephritis. The more severe forms of the inflammation may add very much to the danger of the primary disease or may persist for a long time afterward.

TREATMENT.--(1) The Primary Cases.--In the cases characterized by dropsy the first indication is to get rid of the dropsy, and this is to be done by the methodical use of diuretics, cathartics, and diaphoretics. It will be found, however, that there is a great difference in the different cases as regards the precise time when these remedies will take effect and the dropsy decrease. Usually it is the best plan during the first few weeks of the disease to keep the patient confined to bed or to the house, and on a milk diet. From time to time efforts should be made to reduce the dropsy, but if these efforts produce no effect they should be discontinued and then tried again. In addition to the dropsy the condition of the stomach and the anæmia require treatment. For the stomach the milk diet is perhaps the most efficacious treatment. For the anæmia iron given by the mouth, combined with daily inhalations of oxygen gas, is of very great service. It is very important in these cases to guard against relapses. If possible, the patients should not return to their ordinary pursuits for a year after their apparent recovery, but should spend that time in travelling and improving their health in every possible way.

In the cases characterized by cerebral symptoms it must be confessed that treatment is not very efficacious. Diuretics have no effect, cathartics seem to do no good. Systematic sweating, the use of pilocarpine in small doses twice a day, inhalations of nitrite of amyl, the administration of chloral hydrate, caffeine, digitalis, and convallaria, and the use of fluid food in small doses, are indicated.

(2) The Secondary Cases.--While the primary disease, to which the nephritis is secondary, is running its course there is little to be done for renal symptoms. If, however, these symptoms persist after the termination of the primary disease, then the main indication is to improve the general health in every possible way.

Chronic Parenchymatous Nephritis.

A good deal of confusion is connected with this name, for the reason that many authors include in this one class all the large white kidneys except the waxy ones, and such kidneys present a variety of lesions. There are, however, a moderate number of cases in which the morbid changes are confined to the epithelium of the tubes and to the Malpighian bodies. All the kidneys, no matter what their gross appearance may be, which present changes in the stroma and blood-vessels, as well as in the tubes, belong properly to the class of chronic diffuse nephritis. I confine the name of chronic parenchymatous nephritis, therefore, to {81} those kidneys in which the inflammatory process runs a chronic course and is confined to the epithelium of the tubes and the Malpighian bodies.

LESIONS.--The kidneys are regularly increased in size, often weighing sixteen or twenty ounces. The capsules are not adherent, the surface of the kidney is smooth. The cortex of the kidney is thick and white, with white striæ running into the bases of the pyramids; the pyramids are large and red. The epithelium of most of the tubes and of the Malpighian capsules is swollen, granular, and detached. Cast-matter is present in the tubes. There may be an increase in the number of the small cells which cover the tufts of vessels in the Malpighian bodies.

ETIOLOGY.--This form of nephritis is not very common. It may follow acute parenchymatous nephritis and chronic congestion of the kidney; it is one of the complications of chronic pulmonary phthisis, and it occurs as an idiopathic disease.

SYMPTOMS.--There is a good deal of variety in the different cases as to the quantity and specific gravity of the urine. Usually the quantity is somewhat diminished, and the specific gravity is between 1020 and 1030.

Albumen is regularly present in considerable quantity, but it may be scanty, and may even disappear altogether for a time. Hyaline and granular casts are usually present, but in small numbers.

Dropsy is a regular symptom, and often goes on to general anasarca, although the degree of the oedema varies from week to week. Occasionally a case will run its course without any dropsy.

The functions of the stomach are disturbed, and the patients suffer from loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting.

Muscular twitchings, convulsions, stupor, and coma only occur in the very severe cases.

Dyspnoea is often produced by the dropsy, sometimes is simply a nervous phenomenon.

Bronchitis with cough and expectoration may be a complication.

DURATION.--The course of the disease is slow; it lasts for months and years. The cases vary a good deal in the number and severity of the symptoms. Some cases run their course with nothing but the changes in the urine, loss of appetite, and a moderate degree of anæmia. In other cases the dropsy is the most prominent symptom, and in still others the cerebral symptoms predominate. There may be intervals of weeks and months during which all the symptoms, except the changes in the urine, disappear and then come on again.

PROGNOSIS.--The prognosis of chronic parenchymatous nephritis is not good, but still it is not so bad as that of chronic diffuse nephritis: some of the cases recover and never have any further indications of kidney disease.

TREATMENT.--The main indications for treatment are to improve the digestion, remove the dropsy, and restore the blood to a natural condition. It is usually necessary for the patient to give up his ordinary business and if possible to pass the winter months in a warmer climate.

{82} Acute Diffuse Nephritis.

This form of nephritis has been described under a variety of names. It has been called acute Bright's disease, acute desquamative nephritis, acute tubular nephritis, croupous nephritis, acute albuminuria, the first stage of chronic Bright's disease, acute parenchymatous nephritis, glomerulo-nephritis, and acute interstitial nephritis.

MORBID ANATOMY.--The kidneys are increased in size, the capsules are not adherent, the surfaces are smooth. There may be an intense congestion of the entire kidney, including its pelvis, or the cortex is of an opaque white color mottled with red spots, and the pyramids are red. The tissue of the kidney is usually moist and succulent. In the tubes the epithelial cells are swollen, granular, and detached. Cast-matter and blood are found in many of the tubes. In the Malpighian bodies the cells which line the capsules are increased in size and number, sometimes to such an extent as to compress the tuft of vessels. The stroma of the kidney is infiltrated with serum, pus-cells, and blood.

ETIOLOGY.--Most of the cases of acute diffuse nephritis occur after exposure to cold or as a complication of scarlatina.

SYMPTOMS.--(1) The Idiopathic Cases.--Of these we may distinguish two sets of cases. In the first set of cases the invasion of the disease is acute. A person who has previously been usually in good health, after exposure to cold and wet will be suddenly attacked with rigors, a febrile movement, and pain in the back. There will be frequent and painful micturition, the urine being only passed a few drops at a time, or it is completely suppressed.

The urine is bloody or of a brownish smoky color. It is of low specific gravity. It contains a very large amount of albumen, numerous hyaline, granular, epithelial, and blood casts and renal epithelium, and sometimes pus-cells. Later in the disease fatty casts are also present.

The patient soon develops dropsy, the extent of which varies in the different cases. Sometimes it involves only the face, sometimes the hands and feet, or there may be general subcutaneous oedema, serum in the serous cavities, oedema of the lungs and of the glottis. The patients lose their appetite; often there are nausea and vomiting. As a rule, there are cerebral symptoms--headache, drowsiness, stupor, delirium, muscular twitchings, convulsions, and coma. In the milder cases there will be only headache and periods of drowsiness, alternating with periods of irritability. In the severe cases there will be dyspnoea, delirium, repeated convulsions, and coma.

These are the regular symptoms of the disease--symptoms varying in their number and development with the intensity of the nephritis. In the worst cases the cerebral symptoms are developed early and the patients die at the end of a few days. In other cases the symptoms continue for months, and at the end of that time terminate either in the death or recovery of the patient. Albumen and casts in the urine may persist long after all other symptoms have disappeared. In other cases the disease runs a very mild course; the patients are not at any time seriously ill, and they recover completely at the end of two or three weeks. In still other cases the acute inflammation is succeeded by {83} chronic diffuse nephritis. Relapses and repeated attacks of the disease occur in some persons.

The course of the disease may be modified by complicating inflammations. Pericarditis, pleurisy, peritonitis, pneumonia, cystitis, and inflammations of the joints and muscles are not uncommon.

PROGNOSIS.--In the larger number of cases the prognosis is good. The milder cases recover after two or three weeks; more severe cases last for several months. The bad cases die at the end of a few days with cerebral symptoms, or all the symptoms continue and the patient dies at the end of several months, or they pass on to the lesions and symptoms of chronic diffuse nephritis, or they die from some complicating inflammation.

TREATMENT.--In the mild cases but little treatment is required. The patients should be kept in bed, should have a fluid diet, the bowels should be moved, and the restlessness should be quieted by the bromides, chloral hydrate, or opium. If the dropsy is a marked feature, more active purgatives are to be employed, hot-water or hot-air baths are to be used, and jaborandi may be of service. When the urine is very scanty, wet or dry cups over the region of the kidneys and hot fomentation over the same region are of much service. For the more marked cerebral symptoms treatment is not very satisfactory. As the patients get better iron and tonics are usually indicated. Great care must be used to prevent relapses. All exposure to cold must be avoided; the patient is to be kept in the house or sent to a warm climate for some time after he is apparently well. So long as albumen and casts persist in the urine the patients must not be considered well, although they may present no renal symptoms.

(2) In the second set of cases the invasion of the disease is not acute, and the symptoms may at first be so slight that the patient will hardly notice them. Usually the first symptoms are referable to the stomach. The patients lose their appetite, are troubled with nausea, and vomit occasionally. There may be a moderate amount of pain in the back, general languor, and indisposition for mental or physical work. Then they notice a change in the urine; they pass much less than before. The urine remains of its ordinary color or is a little smoky; its specific gravity is less; it contains a good deal of albumen, sometimes a little blood, and large numbers of hyaline, granular, and epithelial casts.

Dropsy makes its appearance at first in the face or feet; it may remain confined to these regions or extend to the rest of the body and become a general dropsy. The cerebral symptoms are slight--headache, irritability, drowsiness. The blood becomes thin and watery and the patients unnaturally pale. There may be dyspnoea either dropsical or nervous. The symptoms continue for weeks or months.

PROGNOSIS.--These cases, as a rule, do well, and recover at the end of a few weeks or months. But in some the symptoms continue and the patients go on to have chronic diffuse nephritis.

TREATMENT.--In the mild cases it is only necessary to keep the patients in the house, put them on a milk diet, keep the bowels open, and after a time give them iron. If the dropsy is more marked, we must try to get rid of it by cathartics, sweating, and diuretics. If the anæmia is marked, inhalations of oxygen must be combined with the {84} administration of iron. In these cases also it is important to guard against relapses.

The Acute Diffuse Nephritis of Scarlatina.

Most cases of scarlatina are complicated either by acute parenchymatous or diffuse nephritis. Some confusion has arisen from the attempt to describe scarlatinal nephritis as if it was one disease, while really there are two anatomical forms of nephritis which occur as complications of scarlatina. When we try to fix the time during the course of scarlatina when the kidney lesions are developed, we meet with the same difficulty--that statistics have been compiled on the supposition that there is only one form of scarlatinal nephritis. If we take all the cases together, we find that kidney symptoms may be developed from the very first day of scarlet fever to the end of the ninth week--that the largest number of cases develop symptoms on the fourteenth day, the next largest on the twenty-first day, and next to this on the seventh day (Tripe). It seems probable that parenchymatous nephritis belongs to the first weeks of the disease, diffuse nephritis to the later weeks.

SYMPTOMS.--The urine is diminished in amount, and may be suppressed. Its specific gravity is low, its color is bloody or smoky; it contains blood, large amounts of albumen, and numerous hyaline, granular, and epithelial casts.

The patients lose their appetites, and suffer from nausea and occasional vomiting. There is a febrile movement, usually not very severe, pain in the back and limbs. They become unnaturally peevish and irritable and complain of headache, the irritability alternating with drowsiness. In the more severe cases delirium, convulsions, and coma are developed. The color of the patients is changed, the skin and mucous membranes becoming pale. Dropsy is developed--sometimes only a little puffiness of the face, hands, or feet, sometimes general anasarca. Synovitis and muscular rheumatism are frequent complications, while pericarditis, pleurisy, and pneumonia occur less often.

The disease runs its course within a moderate length of time, although the changes in the urine often persist long after all the other symptoms have disappeared. The ordinary cases recover after from one to three weeks; the very bad cases die at the end of a few days. In a few cases the symptoms continue and the patient develops chronic diffuse nephritis.

PROGNOSIS.--The prognosis is quite good. The larger number of the cases recover completely. In the more severe cases, however, the patients may die with cerebral symptoms, or all the symptoms will continue and the patient die after several weeks.

TREATMENT.--The indications for treatment are the same as in the idiopathic form of acute diffuse nephritis.

Chronic Diffuse Nephritis.

This is the most common and the most important form of kidney disease. It has been described under a variety of names--chronic Bright's {85} disease, croupous, catarrhal, interstitial, tubal, and parenchymatous nephritis; fatty, granular, atrophied, cirrhotic, and large white kidney.

Although all patients with chronic diffuse nephritis suffer from essentially the same symptoms, yet there is a good deal of difference as to the way in which these symptoms are developed and as to the predominance of some symptoms over others. Although the minute lesions of the kidneys are essentially the same in all cases, yet the gross appearance varies a good deal. There is, therefore, a practical convenience in distinguishing certain varieties of chronic diffuse nephritis. Of late years, however, the tendency to do this has been carried very far, especially as regards the atrophic form of chronic diffuse nephritis. Writers speak as if there were only two forms of chronic diffuse nephritis--the large white kidneys and the atrophied kidneys--and as if each of these had a distinct clinical history. More than this, the changes in the blood-vessels and in the circulation which so often complicate chronic Bright's disease have attracted so much attention that the arterial changes have been regarded as the most important part of the disease, so that we even hear of Bright's disease without any lesion of the kidneys. It is also customary to describe separately those kidneys of which the arteries have undergone waxy infiltrations.

I do not think that either the lesions or the symptoms are such as to justify such views. After separating the true cases of chronic parenchymatous nephritis--cases in which only the epithelium of the tubes and of the Malpighian capsules is changed--all the other kidneys of chronic Bright's disease present essentially the same lesions and give rise to the same symptoms.

We can indeed often tell during the life of the patient whether he has large white or atrophied or waxy kidneys, but in many cases such a diagnosis is impossible.

MORBID ANATOMY.--There is good deal of variety in the gross appearances and size of the kidneys. Most numerous are the so-called atrophied kidneys. These kidneys are usually diminished in weight, the kidneys weighing together three or four ounces, but often they weigh up to ten or twelve ounces. The capsules are adherent, and when they are stripped off portions of the kidney-tissue adhere to them. After stripping off the capsules the surface of the kidney is left finely or coarsely nodular. The cortex is thinned and of a red or grayish mottled color; the pyramids are small or of normal size, sometimes studded with small white concretions of urate of soda. There are often small cysts both in the cortex and pyramids.

Next in frequency come the so-called large white kidneys. Of these a certain number are not examples of chronic diffuse nephritis at all, but of acute or chronic parenchymatous nephritis. Of the large white kidneys which belong to chronic diffuse nephritis we can distinguish three varieties--the simple large white, the waxy large white, and the large white of cardiac disease.

The gross appearance of the kidneys is very much the same whether they are or are not the seat of waxy infiltrations. They are increased in size, weighing together from sixteen to twenty ounces. The capsules are not adherent; the surfaces of the kidneys are smooth and pale, often mottled by large stellate veins. The cortex is thickened, of white or {86} white mottled with red, or yellow or grayish color. In the very waxy kidneys the gray or white color has a semi-translucent appearance. The pyramids are large and red, contrasting with the cortex. We find some kidneys of the same color and general appearance as large white kidneys, but with atrophied cortex and adherent capsules.

The large white kidneys due to cardiac disease are increased in size and weight. The capsules are not adherent, the surfaces are smooth. The cortex is thickened and of a peculiar pinkish-white color; the cortical striæ may still be visible. The pyramids are of a somewhat darker red than the cortex. The whole coloring is entirely different from that of chronic congestion of the kidneys, and the texture, although firm, is not of the stony hardness of that lesion.

Besides the atrophied and the large white kidneys, there are a large number of kidneys which are not diminished in weight and which do not resemble either the large white or the atrophied kidneys. These kidneys weigh together from nine to twenty ounces. The capsules are sometimes adherent, sometimes not. The surface of the cortex may look like that of a normal kidney or be finely or coarsely nodular. The cortex is of normal thickness or thickened; it is of a variety of colors. Sometimes it is not to be distinguished from a normal kidney, or it may be gray or gray mottled with yellow or red or white, or of a diffuse red color. The pyramids are of natural size or large, of red or pale color. I do not know a good name for these kidneys, but their appearance differs altogether from that of the large white or atrophied kidneys.

Still another class may be made of those kidneys which pass from the condition of chronic congestion into that of chronic diffuse nephritis. These kidneys retain the color and the hardness of chronic congestion, but the capsules are adherent, the surfaces finely nodular, and the cortex irregular.

Minute Lesions.--Nearly all the component parts of the kidneys undergo morbid changes. In the tubes the epithelial cells undergo marked changes, especially in the cortex. The epithelial cells are swollen, finely or coarsely granular, or fatty or completely disintegrated, or the seat of hyaline degeneration. They may be detached from the walls of the tubes, or sometimes they are in place, but flattened. The tubes may contain cast-matter, blood, pus-cells, small polygonal cells. The calibre of the tubes is often changed. The tubes may be dilated either in the form of cylindrical or sacculated dilatations; the latter often form cysts of considerable size. Such dilatations regularly affect groups of tubes, as if they were due to obstruction of the large tubes in the pyramids. In other cases the tubes are denuded of epithelium, become smaller, fall together, and look like connective tissue. The membranous wall of the tubules may be thickened or it may undergo waxy degeneration.

The Malpighian bodies are changed. Their capsules may be thickened, contracted, or dilated. The flat cells which line the capsules are increased in size, sometimes in number. The capillary tuft may be dilated or its walls may be thickened; it may be completely obliterated and changed into a ball of fibrous tissue, or it may be the seat of waxy infiltration. Often the Malpighian bodies are much closer together than they are in a normal kidney.

{87} In the stroma, especially in the cortex, there is a new growth of connective tissue. This new connective tissue is in patches of varying size, surrounds Malpighian bodies and blood-vessels, and may be continuous with the capsule of the kidneys.

The arteries are frequently changed. There is a general thickening of all their coats, usually a simple sclerotic thickening.

All these changes, when they have once begun in the kidneys, have a natural tendency to go on and become more and more marked. There is much difference in different kidneys in the predominance of one or more of these changes over others. In one kidney the changes in the tubes will be most marked, in another those in the Malpighian bodies, in another those in the stroma. But there seems no good reason for believing that these changes are developed successively--that there is first a lesion of the stroma, then a lesion of the tubes, or first a lesion of the tubes, and then of the stroma. The earliest examples of chronic diffuse nephritis, obtained from persons dying accidentally of other diseases, show that the lesions are diffuse at the very outset.

In the atrophied kidneys the new connective tissue is in patches. In the earliest stages of the lesion these patches are confined to the region close to the capsule; later in the disease the whole thickness of the cortex is involved. The tubes embraced within these areas of new connective tissue are atrophied and collapsed. The rest of the cortex-tubes exhibit marked degenerative changes in the epithelium, and often cast-matter. Dilatation of the tubes is very common. The Malpighian bodies are usually much altered--the capsules thickened, the tufts atrophied. Occasionally there is waxy degeneration of the Malpighian tufts. There are some atrophied kidneys in which the changes in the stroma are very slight.

In the large white kidneys there is much variety. In some of them one is surprised to find how slight the minute lesions are. In others the principal changes are in the epithelium of the tubes, so that it may be difficult to tell whether they are examples of parenchymatous or of diffuse nephritis. In many others there is a very marked production of new connective tissue either in patches or diffuse. The large white kidneys which are waxy differ from the others only in the addition of the waxy degeneration of the Malpighian tufts and arteries to the other lesions. I have no knowledge of any kidneys in which waxy degeneration exists without the presence of the regular lesions of diffuse nephritis.

In the large white kidneys of cardiac disease the large thickened arteries are a prominent feature.

ETIOLOGY.--Chronic diffuse nephritis is more common in males than in females. It is said to occur at nearly all ages; the maximum liability is in persons between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five years. The disease prevails principally in temperate climates; in New York it is of very common occurrence. Persons who are habitually intemperate, who have constitutional syphilis, who suffer from privation, are very liable to the disease. There is a disposition in certain families to the development of the disease. Not that it is, strictly speaking, hereditary, but there will be a number of examples of it in the same family. A number of brothers and sisters or of more distant relatives in the same family will {88} at different times suffer from the disease. There seems also to be some sort of relationship between chronic diffuse nephritis and pulmonary phthisis. Not only does nephritis complicate phthisis, but in the same family some members have phthisis, others nephritis.

Acute diffuse nephritis and chronic congestion of the kidney may be followed by chronic diffuse nephritis.

Heart disease, emphysema, phthisis, cirrhosis of the liver, chronic inflammation of the bones and joints, gout, rheumatism, and chronic arteritis, are often complicated by the disease.

SYMPTOMS.--It is sometimes impossible to tell which of the varieties of chronic nephritis exists in a given patient, but in other cases the diagnosis can be made. If, however, we correct our clinical diagnosis by post-mortem observations, we find that we may be mistaken about even the (apparently) most characteristic cases. There is more difference in the earlier stages of these cases than in the later ones. In hospitals, where the patients come to die, all the cases of chronic diffuse nephritis are a good deal alike.

The atrophied kidneys present us with a very great variety of clinical histories. It is impossible to describe all the different ways in which the disease may begin and run its course, but we may enumerate some of them:

1. Persons may have atrophied kidneys for a number of years without any renal symptoms; they die from accident or from some other disease, and at the autopsy the kidneys are found to be far advanced in disease.

2. The disease of the kidneys exists, but it gives no symptoms until the patient suffers from some severe accident or is attacked by some acute disease, and then the renal symptoms are suddenly developed.

3. The patient will very slowly lose flesh and strength, the appetite will be capricious, either mental or bodily exertion is an effort, but there are no positive symptoms, except that the urine is of rather low specific gravity, and in the evening urine there will be occasionally a trace of albumen. In this condition these patients may continue for years. They may improve very much under treatment, and finally die from some other disease without ever developing any renal symptoms. Other cases, however, do after a time develop all the characteristic symptoms.

4. For several months the patients do not feel well: the appetite is lost, there is nausea and occasional vomiting, they become pale and anæmic, do not sleep well at night, are irritable and easily worried, are troubled with headache. The urine continues normal or is of low specific gravity or contains a little albumen. Then they suddenly become worse and the regular symptoms are developed.

5. In other cases headache or sleeplessness or dyspnoea or loss of vision may precede all the other symptoms by several weeks.

6. Severe neuralgic pains in different parts of the body, coming on in attacks and very rebellious to treatment, may precede the other symptoms for months.

7. The very first symptoms may be an attack of convulsions. The patient may have been apparently in good health, and while sitting quietly in a room or lying in bed will be seized with a general convulsion. In some of these cases the convulsions are repeated; between them the patient remains partly or completely unconscious, and dies in {89} a few days. In other cases one or two convulsions are followed by the development of the other symptoms of the disease.

8. With valvular disease of the heart and atrophied kidneys we may get the same combination of symptoms which I have described in the section on chronic congestion of the kidneys.

9. The patient may first notice that he is passing too much urine. This urine is of low specific gravity, and occasionally contains a little albumen and hyaline casts. Then the health begins to fail: there are dyspeptic symptoms, headache, occasional oedema of the legs. From time to time the patient becomes worse; the urine is diminished in quantity, the headache is more marked; he cannot sleep, he has dyspnoea, he vomits, the muscles of the face twitch, or there may be general convulsions or delirium or partial or complete coma. Such attacks may last for days or weeks, and then either terminate fatally, or the patient gets better and may be able to return to his ordinary business for a time. In this way the same patient may suffer from a number of such attacks.

10. In some cases dropsy is a prominent feature from the very first and goes on to general anasarca.

The following history would answer for many of the cases of atrophied kidneys: A woman, thirty-eight years old, was in good health, fat and robust, until January, 1873. Then she caught cold; her feet became oedematous; she had headache, pain in the back, vomiting; her eyesight was impaired; her urine was increased in amount and passed more frequently. She continued in this condition and losing flesh and strength until June, 1873, when she came into the hospital. At that time the urine was diminished to eighteen ounces in twenty-four hours; it contained a considerable amount of albumen and hyaline and granular casts. Her color was still good. There was moderate oedema of the feet. After this the urine increased in amount to eighty ounces daily--specific gravity 1002, albumen diminished. The dropsy disappeared, and the patient left the hospital feeling very well on September 29, 1873. In December, 1873, she returned to the hospital with nausea and vomiting, dyspnoea, cough, no dropsy; urine 80 to 100 ounces daily. She had become feeble and anæmic, and there was well-marked hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart. She again improved, and was discharged after two weeks. In March, 1874, she returned. The urine was now scanty, and she was troubled with vomiting, dyspnoea, cough, sleeplessness, slight convulsive movements of the voluntary muscles, no dropsy. By the end of April she was again feeling well, and left the hospital. In June, 1874, she returned with all the old symptoms and oedema of the legs. On July 20 she had two general convulsions. After this she again improved for a time, but in September all the symptoms returned, and she was delirious a good deal of the time. Urine 40 to 50 ounces daily, specific gravity 1005, moderate amount of albumen, no casts. By the end of September she again was sleepless, had several slight convulsions, and died October 2. The kidneys were a typical picture of the red atrophied kidneys with thickened arteries.

We may say in general that with the atrophied kidneys the so-called uræmic symptoms--headache, sleeplessness, delirium, convulsions, coma, dyspnoea--are very apt to occur, and that early in the disease. The urine is regularly increased in amount and of low specific gravity, except {90} during the uræmic attacks, when it is diminished; but the uræmic attacks may come on while the patient is passing 30 to 40 ounces of urine of a specific gravity of 1020. Albumen is regularly present only in small amounts, and not constantly, but exceptionally there will be a good deal. Casts are hyaline, not constant, but exceptionally in considerable numbers. Dropsy may be absent throughout the disease, or a little oedema of the face and legs may come and go, or there may be marked general anasarca. Not unfrequently during the uræmic attacks the temperature runs up to 99° to 100°. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart is a frequent complication, but I have not found it in as large a proportion of cases in New York as it is described by English and German writers.

The duration of the disease is very uncertain. In fact, we seldom know what its real duration is, for the reason that there is no necessary relation between the development of the kidney lesions and the appearance of the symptoms. After the appearance of the kidney symptoms some of the patients die in a few days; others go on for months and years with either constant or intermittent symptoms.

The Large White Kidney.--These cases are more readily recognized than the cases of atrophied kidneys, for the reason that dropsy is more constant and occurs earlier in the disease, and that albumen is regularly present in the urine.

In many of the cases oedema of the face or feet is the first symptom. Often the patients will tell you that it is the only symptom, and that they would feel perfectly well if they could only get rid of the swelling. Closer questioning, however, will usually show that the functions of the stomach are disturbed, that there is occasional headache, that the eyesight is impaired, and that the patient has been passing less urine.

In some cases impairment of vision is the first symptom that attracts the attention of the patient. In some cases disturbances of digestion, or neuralgic pains, or gradual loss of health and strength, or a diminished amount of urine, will be the first symptoms, and may last for weeks before other symptoms are developed. Or the patient may be attacked suddenly as if with acute diffuse nephritis. The urine will contain blood and numerous casts; the dropsy and the other symptoms are rapidly developed. In some of the cases complicated with cardiac disease the history will be that of heart disease rather than that of kidney disease.

When the disease is fairly established the dropsy is always a prominent symptom, often very distressing to the patient. In some patients when once developed it continues to increase steadily up to the time of their death; in others the dropsy comes and goes, sometimes disappearing altogether for weeks and months.

The functions of the stomach are usually disturbed, the patients lose appetite, have nausea and vomiting, oppression after eating, etc. But some persons retain a good appetite for a long time, even though they vomit occasionally. Diarrhoea is often developed; sometimes only enough to carry off part of the dropsy, sometimes profuse, persistent, and uncontrollable. The blood becomes thin and watery, and the skin, the mucous membranes, and the sclerotic assume an unnatural white appearance. The patients lose both mental and bodily vigor, and become less and less fit to carry on their ordinary occupations.

Of the uræmic symptoms, headache and dyspnoea occur at any time in {91} the course of the disease, but convulsions, delirium, and coma belong to its later stages.

The urine is regularly first diminished and afterward increased, but the quantity often varies very much from day to day. The specific gravity is regularly low, albumen is constant and in large amount; casts are usually present in considerable numbers, especially during the exacerbations of the disease, when hyaline, granular, and epithelial casts are found, but in other cases hardly any casts can be found. Blood is sometimes present in the urine during the exacerbations of the nephritis.

The disease varies much in its course and duration. Some cases progress steadily, getting worse from day to day, and die at the end of a few months from the time at which the first symptoms appeared. Other persons go on living for years, the symptoms improving or disappearing for weeks or months, and then coming again. Finally, the patients die--some in an exacerbation of the disease with bloody urine and acute symptoms; some with excessive dropsy; some with delirium, convulsions, and coma; some suddenly; some with complicating disease.

The following histories may serve to illustrate the course of the disease:

A male, thirty years old, of intemperate habits, for one year before his death noticed that his urine was sometimes scanty and high-colored, sometimes abundant and pale, and that his eyesight became impaired. For four months there was occasional nausea and vomiting. For six weeks there was occasional headache, dyspnoea, and oedema of the feet, the urine more scanty. For nine days before death he passed from one to four ounces of urine daily, specific gravity 1014, albumen 50 per cent., numerous hyaline, granular, and epithelial casts. The man was now feeble and anæmic, had headache, was drowsy, vomited occasionally, had twitching of muscles of face; continued drowsy, but with his mental faculties quite clear, so that he was able to transact some business an hour before he died. Death was sudden while lying quietly in bed. The kidneys weighed twenty ounces, surfaces smooth, cortex thick and white, pyramids large and red. The Malpighian bodies showed a marked increase in the size and number of the capsule cells; the cortex-tubes were dilated; in some the epithelium was flattened, in others swollen, granular, and detached; in the pyramid-tubes the epithelium was swollen and detached; there was cast-matter in some of the tubes, both in the cortex and pyramids; there was a very extensive new growth of new connective tissue in the cortex, partly diffuse, partly in patches.

A male, forty-one years old, six years before his death caught cold while bathing, and suffered with dropsy, a febrile movement, prostration, scanty urine which contained albumen, blood, and numerous casts. After a few weeks all the symptoms disappeared and he returned to his business. He continued to enjoy good health for about eighteen months; then in the winter the urine became scanty and contained blood, albumen, and numerous casts. General anasarca was rapidly developed. The dropsy lasted for six months, and then disappeared, but the urine from that time always contained varying amounts of albumen and casts. For nearly two years after this time the man continued to feel well, was actively engaged in business, had no dropsy, but the urine still contained {92} casts and albumen. Then the dropsy returned again, and was very considerable. But the appetite and digestion continued good, there was no headache, the patient was intelligent and cheerful. The dropsy, a moderate diarrhoea, and the change in the urine were the only symptoms. In two months the dropsy had again disappeared and the patient returned to his work. After this time, however, the patient was never as well: a little oedema of the legs was present much of the time; he became gradually more and more anæmic and feeble, and finally died with marked dropsy and anæmia about six years from the time of the first appearance of kidney symptoms.

The Large White Kidneys with Waxy Infiltration.--It is well known that in certain persons a peculiar morbid change takes place in the viscera. The walls of the blood-vessels and some of the glandular cells become infiltrated with a peculiar translucent substance. This morbid change is commonly known by the name of waxy or amyloid infiltration. It is known that such an infiltration occurs regularly in persons who have chronic inflammations of the bones and joints, constitutional syphilis, and pulmonary phthisis. It is also known that this new substance is colored in a special way by iodine and some of the aniline colors. Beyond this we have no real knowledge of what the substance is or how it is produced.

In other parts of the body the waxy infiltration can hardly be said to produce any local symptoms. If one has a waxy liver or spleen, these organs may give the physical evidences of their enlargement, but that is all. We look upon such patients as suffering from some general changes concerning the nature of which we are ignorant, but not as suffering simply from disease of the liver or spleen.

It seems at first sight natural to think of waxy kidneys in the same way--not as examples of kidney disease, but as parts of a general morbid condition. This view has been adopted by most authors. They describe the waxy kidneys as something different from the other forms of nephritis. But really this is an error. In the vast majority of cases the waxy kidneys are simply a variety of chronic diffuse nephritis. It is possible (Cohnheim) to have waxy infiltration of the Malpighian bodies without other lesion of the kidney, but this is a rare exception. The rule is that we find the ordinary lesions of chronic diffuse nephritis; and, more than this, we often find the nephritic lesions very much farther advanced than the waxy infiltration. The association of the lesions is not at all such as to give the idea that the waxy infiltration is produced first and the other lesions afterward. It is also not uncommon to find waxy infiltration of the Malpighian tufts without similar changes in any other part of the body.

The type of the nephritis varies in different cases. Most of the kidneys resemble the large white kidneys, some the atrophied, some those which are neither large white nor atrophied. The clinical history varies in the same way, and is that of a large white or atrophied kidney, as the case may be. The only difference is that in some patients (not in the majority) there is a very large amount of urine passed of low specific gravity.

As a matter of fact, in most cases of waxy kidneys we simply make the diagnosis of chronic diffuse nephritis, and if we add to this that of {93} waxy infiltration it is because the patients have had syphilis or bone or joint disease. Even in this way we are often enough deceived, as in the following case:

A woman, twenty-six years old, came into the hospital on January 25, 1876. She had contracted syphilis five years before. For two years she had suffered from dyspnoea and frontal headache. For seven months there was occasional oedema of the face and feet. At the time of her admission to the hospital she was very pale and anæmic; the urine was of a specific gravity of 1008, abundant, and contained no albumen or casts. The liver was very large and smooth. It was supposed that she had waxy liver and kidneys. She grew steadily weaker, continued to have a little oedema, vomited occasionally, developed the physical signs of bronchitis, with a temperature of 104° Fahr., and died on April 3, 1876. At the autopsy the aortic valves were found thin and insufficient. There was muco-pus in both the large and small bronchi, with irregular spots of red hepatization in the lung. The liver and spleen were large and waxy. The kidneys weighed together four ounces, and presented the ordinary lesions of atrophied kidneys, with only commencing waxy infiltrations of a few of the Malpighian tufts.

The Large White Kidney of Heart Disease.--This variety of chronic diffuse nephritis seems to be secondary to organic disease of the heart, and, less frequently, to emphysema of the lungs. The urine is diminished in amount, sometimes suppressed; it is dark-colored, the specific gravity varies between 1010 and 1030; albumen is absent altogether or present in small amount; hyaline and granular casts may be present, but are not constant. Dropsy may be absent or moderate or excessive. Cerebral symptoms--vomiting, cough, dyspnoea, anæmia--are usually present. Some of the patients die suddenly, some with dropsy, some with urgent dyspnoea.

The examples of chronic diffuse nephritis which are neither atrophied kidneys nor large white kidneys are numerous. Some of them give the clinical history of the large white kidneys, some that of the atrophied kidneys, some do not correspond to that of either; but they all exhibit some of the characteristic symptoms of chronic nephritis--changes in the urine, dyspnoea, vomiting, cerebral symptoms, dropsy, anæmia.

The following histories will show the course of the disease in some of these cases:

Case 1.--A male, forty years old, came into hospital on October 9, 1881. The patient was a beer-drinker, but denied rheumatism and syphilis. He said that he had been perfectly well until fourteen months before; then he had an attack of lobar pneumonia which confined him to the house for four weeks. Since that time he has never felt as well and has had occasional dyspnoea. Nine months ago the dyspnoea became so troublesome that he had to give up work, and he also began to suffer from severe headaches. Three weeks ago the urine became scanty and dropsy appeared in the legs and scrotum. When admitted to the hospital the patient was large and fat. There was dropsy of the legs and of the scrotum, marked dyspnoea, sibillant râles over both lungs; 10 ounces of urine in twenty-four hours, specific gravity 1023, albumen 10 per cent., hyaline and epithelial casts. The urine on Oct. 12 was 13 ounces; on Oct. 14, 42 ounces; on Oct. 18, 54 ounces. On this last day he had {94} several convulsions, became comatose, and died October 19. At the autopsy the pia mater was thickened and there was an increase of serum beneath it. The heart weighed fourteen ounces, the aortic and mitral valves were a little thickened, the walls of the ventricles were unnaturally hard. In the lungs there were a few old hard miliary tubercles. The kidneys weighed sixteen ounces, surfaces smooth, capsules not adherent, cortex and pyramids of red color, urates in the pyramids. The cortex-tubes showed marked changes in their epithelium, but the Malpighian bodies, stroma, and arteries were nearly normal.

Case 2.--A female, forty-five years old, was admitted to the hospital December 5, 1881. Denied rheumatism, syphilis, and intemperance. She had considered herself strong and well until two months before. Then she had a sudden attack of dyspnoea, dizziness, faintness, and cardiac palpitation. After this she was never well, complained of pain about the heart, headache, attacks of dyspnoea, dropsy of the face, hands, and feet. The urine was scanty and dark-colored. She is now emaciated and anæmic, has moderate oedema of the legs, complains of dyspnoea, headache, and nausea. The heart's action is feeble and irregular, and there is a presystolic murmur. On December 19 she vomited blood. On January 2 she had a chill, followed by a temperature of 102°. On January 5 she became drowsy, then had twitchings of the muscles of the face; became semi-comatose, and died January 11. While she was in the hospital the urine varied in amount from 1 to 6 ounces daily; it contained a very large amount of albumen and a few hyaline casts. After death the pia mater looked sodden and finely granular. The walls of its arteries were a little thickened, and there were little clumps of endothelial cells on its outer surface. The mitral valve of the heart was thickened and stenosed. The kidneys were of medium size, their capsules slightly adherent, their surfaces finely nodular, the cortex of normal thickness, red mottled with yellow spots. There was an extensive growth of diffuse connective tissue separating the tubes both in the cortex and pyramids. The tubes were large and contained much cast-matter. Most of the Malpighian bodies were normal.

COMPLICATIONS.--The most frequent complication of chronic diffuse nephritis is disease of the heart. We find cardiac lesions and renal lesions associated in three different ways:

1. Valvular lesions or dilatation of the ventricles produce chronic congestion of the kidney, with its changes into parenchymatous or diffuse nephritis or the large white kidney of cardiac disease.

2. Chronic diffuse nephritis is followed by the development of hypertrophy of the left ventricle. This may occur with all the varieties of chronic diffuse nephritis, but is most common with the atrophied kidneys.

3. Valvular lesions and chronic nephritis occur in the same persons, but neither can be said to depend upon the other.

The arteries are often diseased, the aorta and the arteries throughout the body. There may be a simple sclerosis and thickening of the wall of an artery, or endarteritis deformans, or obliterating arteritis.

Cerebral apoplexy may occur with all the varieties of chronic diffuse nephritis, but much more frequently with atrophied kidneys.

Thickening of the pia mater, with increase of serum beneath it, is often seen.

{95} Dilatation of the lateral ventricles of the brain sometimes occurs, and may give rise to cerebral symptoms.

Pericarditis is seen more frequently with the atrophied kidneys.

Pneumonia is especially apt to be fatal when it occurs in persons already suffering from chronic diffuse nephritis.

Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are often associated with the atrophied kidneys.

Phthisis is found with all the varieties of chronic nephritis.

Peritonitis occurs in a few cases as a complicating inflammation.

Cirrhosis of the liver is found quite frequently.

PROGNOSIS.--In every case of chronic diffuse nephritis the natural course of the morbid changes in the kidney tissue is to become more marked and involve more and more of the kidney. The effect upon the general health of the patient is not in any exact relation to the degree of the kidney lesion. These two facts render the prognosis of chronic diffuse nephritis very uncertain. The disease is always a very serious one, and terminates regularly in destroying life, but the length of time that will elapse before this fatal termination, and the precise way in which death will take place, are difficult to determine beforehand.

TREATMENT.--There seems no good reason for believing that we can directly influence the development of the lesions in the kidneys. It is possible that such a development may be indirectly delayed by improving the general health of the patient.

There is good reason to believe that some of the symptoms which occur regularly in patients who have chronic diffuse nephritis are dependent not upon the nephritis, but upon other causes. We may therefore look for indications for treatment in three different directions:

1. To delay the development of the disease by improving the general health of the patient.

2. To treat those symptoms which are not produced by the kidney disease.

3. To treat those symptoms which are produced by the kidney lesions.

To fulfil the first indication the most potent influences that we have are the giving up of business and of vicious habits and causing the patient to live year after year in the most suitable climates. Generally speaking, warm climates are to be preferred, but the individual disposition of each patient must always be consulted.

Of less efficacy, but still of importance, are the improvement of the digestion by means of drugs and the feeding of the patient.

In every patient suffering from chronic diffuse nephritis there are a number of symptoms which seem to depend directly upon other conditions, and not upon the kidney lesions; for if these conditions are removed the symptoms disappear, although the kidney lesions continue. To this category of symptoms seem to belong the headache, delirium, stupor, coma, and convulsions, the nervous dyspnoea, the vomiting in part, the dropsy in part, the diminution of urine in part. All these symptoms are due to disturbances of the circulation, and the disturbances of the circulation are produced by a number of causes which may act separately or together. Changes in the valves and walls of the heart, in the force and regularity of the heart's contraction, in the walls and size of the arteries and capillaries, and in the volume and composition of the {96} blood, each, separately or associated, may interfere with the proper circulation of the blood, and this interference usually takes the form of too much blood in the veins and too little blood in the arteries.

Anatomical changes in the valves of the heart, in its walls, and in the walls of the arteries and capillaries cannot be influenced by any means at our command. The force and regularity of the contractions of the heart can, however, be very decidedly modified by drugs. Opium in moderate doses makes the heart's action slower and stronger; iodide of potassium makes the heart's action more regular; convallaria makes the heart's action slower and stronger; digitalis increases the force of the heart's action, but at the same time contracts the arterioles; aconite and veratrum viride make the heart's action slower and more feeble.

The size of the arteries and capillaries can also be altered by drugs. Nitrite of amyl and nitro-glycerin relax and dilate the whole arterial and capillary system; chloral hydrate dilates the arterioles (Fothergill).

The volume of the blood can be diminished by bloodletting and by eliminating the plasma of the blood indirectly by sweating, purging, or diuresis.

The symptoms which can be ascribed directly to the presence of the kidney disease are--(1) The changes in the composition of the blood. We have still very little exact knowledge of what these changes are, but we may say generally that there is an increase in the relative quantity of the watery constituents of the blood and of the excrementitious products which should be eliminated by the kidneys. (2) The changes in the quantity of urine probably depend partly on the changes in the circulation, partly on the composition of the blood, and partly upon the structural changes in the kidneys. The albumen and casts seem to be directly due to the kidney lesion. (3) The changes in the nutrition of the patient, the disturbances of digestion, and some of the headaches, all seem to belong directly to the kidney disease.

Now let us try to apply these principles to the practical treatment of the different symptoms.

The Urine.--As regards the presence of albumen and casts, it is doubtful whether we are able to do anything, although it is customary to give the tr. ferri chloridi and the bichloride of mercury in order to diminish the excretion of albumen. As regards the quantity of urine, we must distinguish whether the patient is in the ordinary course of the disease, whether he is having an uræmic attack, or whether he is having an acute exacerbation of the nephritis with congestion of the kidney and blood in the urine. Under the circumstances last mentioned the indications are to apply wet or dry cups over the lumbar region, to use hot fomentations to the back or hot-air baths, to open the bowels freely, to put the patient on a milk diet, and, if the heart's action is too strong, to give aconite in small doses.

If during the ordinary course of the disease the urine is constantly diminished, diuretics are often of good service, although the cases differ as to the particular drugs which answer best. The preparations of digitalis, the diuretic pill of digitalis, squills, and bichloride of mercury, the iodide and acetate of potash, and jaborandi in small doses, are the most reliable agents of this class. Sometimes the frequent use of milk or of water in small quantities (half an ounce or an ounce every half hour) will {97} answer the purpose. There can never be any use in continuing the employment of diuretics in these cases if after a fair trial they do not increase the flow of urine.

During the progress of uræmic attacks diuretics do not act, and the same is often the case with cathartics and diaphoretics. The urine is only to be increased by the same means which are indicated for the relief of the whole uræmic condition, and of these we will speak later.

The dropsy in many cases will vary in amount, and even disappear at times without any treatment. It is regularly most marked with the large white kidneys and with those kidneys which are neither large white nor atrophied, especially when there is complicating heart disease and the patient is anæmic. Generally speaking, it is best to keep dropsical patients in bed most of the day. We attempt to get rid of the oedema by the skin, the bowels, and the kidneys, to regulate the heart's action, and to improve the condition of the blood. Hot-air baths or hot-water baths repeated every day, the milder hydragogue cathartics, and the different diuretics may all be used with advantage. If the dropsy is excessive, it may be necessary to tap the peritoneal or pleural cavities or to puncture the skin of the legs and scrotum. Sometimes bandaging the legs so as to exert moderate pressure seems to assist in getting rid of dropsy. To regulate the heart's action we find that digitalis, convallaria, and the iodide of potash are often of service. To improve the condition of the blood the systematic use of iron and oxygen is indicated. The most hopeless cases are those in which there is complicating heart disease and those in which the dropsy steadily increases, although the patient is passing from 60 to 100 ounces of urine daily.

Disturbances of the stomach are of different kinds and dependent upon different conditions. There may be simply loss of appetite or discomfort after eating, or nausea, flatulence, and vomiting; and these symptoms will be associated with chronic catarrhal gastritis or with a stomach that is anatomically normal. Sometimes, although there is occasional nausea and vomiting, the appetite continues good, or as part of an uræmic attack there will be constant vomiting.

The habitual dyspeptic disturbances are to be treated like other cases of gastric dyspepsia. A regulated diet, the vegetable bitters, the mineral acids, or the alkalies are sometimes of service. The repeated and persistent vomiting of uræmic attacks is a most distressing symptom and one often very difficult to control. The patients must be fed with small quantities of fluid food or of prepared meat. The most efficient remedies are those addressed to the condition of the circulation. Hypodermic injections of morphia, enemata of chloral hydrate, inhalations of nitrite of amyl, convallaria in small doses by the mouth, are all of service.

The anæmia from which the patients suffer is to be combated by the systematic use of iron and oxygen. Any efficient preparation of iron will answer, but it must often be given in considerable doses. Sometimes the bichloride of mercury in small doses answers better than iron. The oxygen should be inhaled for from five to thirty minutes twice a day.

The so-called uræmic attacks, although they have a general similarity, yet vary in their manifestations in different cases. In some cases the {98} patient develops an unnatural restlessness and anxiety, an inability to sleep, now and then a sudden twitch of one of the facial muscles, and headache. Or a patient whose color is still good will only complain of pain in the epigastrium and moderate dyspnoea, and yet will be in bed and evidently seriously ill. 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; then gradually becomes unconscious, then comatose, and so dies. Or there are first attacks of dyspnoea, either spasmodic or from exertion, but which are temporary and can be relieved. Then the dyspnoea becomes more constant and severe; the patient cannot lie down at all, all remedies become less and less efficacious, and the dyspnoea only ends with the life of the sufferer. In other cases a patient will suddenly become unconscious, although not comatose; he will lie flat in bed, the skin livid and bathed in perspiration, the respiration labored and rapid, with coarse râles all over the lungs, the heart's action rapid and feeble, the temperature perhaps a little elevated; or sudden and profound coma or noisy delirium or repeated convulsions may be the prominent features.

There is hardly a limit to the variety of the precise manner in which all these symptoms--restlessness, sleeplessness, headache, vomiting, delirium, convulsions, and coma--may present themselves. It is to be remembered that although all these symptoms are always dangerous, and often fatal, yet patients may pass through a number of such attacks before the fatal one arrives.

To relieve these attacks the most effectual remedies are opium, chloral hydrate, nitrite of amyl, convallaria, digitalis, caffeine, bloodletting, purging, sweating, and cathartics.

Opium is a very valuable remedy, but great judgment is required in selecting the preparation and the dose for each case. The old doctrine that opium is a dangerous drug for patients suffering from Bright's disease is perfectly true, but it is equally true that it is also a valuable remedy. Generally speaking, the more marked the uræmic attack the larger the dose of opium that will be borne. It is always well to try to obtain a free movement from the bowels, although this is not always possible.

In the milder cases the fluid extract of convallaria in ten-minim doses will often diminish the frequency of the heart's action, increase the production of urine, and improve the general condition of the patient.

In the earlier stages of dyspnoea five-grain doses of the iodide of potash with a little opium will sometimes keep the patient comfortable for months. For the severe attacks of dyspnoea dry cups over the chest and inhalations of oxygen are of service. In the worst and most uncontrollable dyspnoea it seems justifiable to keep the patient under the influence of ether or chloroform.

{99} SUPPURATIVE NEPHRITIS AND PYELO-NEPHRITIS.

Suppurative inflammation of the tissue of the kidney and of its pelvis and calices occurs under several different conditions: It is the result of injuries; it is due to emboli; it occurs without discoverable causes; it is secondary to cystitis, the cystitis being due to strictures of the urethra, to stone in the bladder, to paraplegia, to operations on the urethra, bladder, and uterus, to gonorrhoea, to enlarged prostate.

Chronic suppurative pyelo-nephritis is often caused by the presence of calculi in the pelvis of the kidney.

1. Suppurative Nephritis from Injury.--Gunshot wounds, incised or punctured wounds, falls, blows, and kicks are the ordinary traumatic causes. If the injury is a very severe one, it causes the death of the patient in a short time; if it is less severe, suppurative inflammation may be developed.

The inflammatory process may be diffuse, so that the whole of one or both kidneys is converted into a soft mass composed of pus, blood, and broken-down tissue, or it is circumscribed, and one or more abscesses are found in the kidney which may communicate with the pelvis.

SYMPTOMS.--Rigors mark the beginning of the suppuration, and are often repeated through its course. A febrile movement is developed which is apt to assume the hectic character with sweatings. There is often vomiting. There may be very severe pain, referred to the region of the inflamed kidneys. The urine is diminished or suppressed; it contains blood alone or blood and pus.

In the bad cases the patients pass into the typhoid condition, become delirious, and die comatose or with a very rapid or febrile pulse. Or the disease is protracted, the patients become more and more emaciated, and finally die exhausted.

In other cases the symptoms abate, the urine returns to its natural condition, and the patients recover.

TREATMENT.--The management of these cases is rather surgical than medical. The external wound is to be treated antiseptically, and the general condition of the patient to be looked after in the ordinary way.

Such traumatic abscesses are of infrequent occurrence. I have no personal knowledge of them.

2. Abscesses produced by Emboli.--In ordinary endocarditis with vegetations on the valves it often happens that fragments of the vegetations become fixed in the branches of the renal arteries. When this is the case infarctions are produced, usually of the white variety.

With malignant endocarditis, with surgical pyæmia, and with the curious cases called idiopathic pyæmia, small emboli seem to find their way into the smallest branches of the renal artery. They do not produce infarctions, but small abscesses. In these cases the kidneys are increased in size and dotted with little white points surrounded by a red zone. These little white points are formed by an infiltration of pus-cells between the tubes, and in the larger foci by a breaking down of the kidney-tissue. Colonies of micrococci are sometimes, but not always, found in the Malpighian tufts, the veins, and the abscesses.

{100} SYMPTOMS.--These embolic abscesses can hardly be said to have any clinical history. Whatever symptoms may belong to them are lost in those of the general disease from which the patient is suffering.

3. Idiopathic Abscesses.--Occasionally cases of abscesses of one of the kidneys are met with. They last a long time, and when the patient dies both the kidney tissue and the pelvis are involved to such an extent as to render the anatomical diagnosis difficult. The greater part of the kidney-tissue is destroyed and replaced by sacs full of pus; the pelvis is dilated and its walls thickened. The surrounding connective tissue is thickened; perforations and sinuses may extend into the surrounding connective tissue, into the large intestine, and through the diaphragm into the lung.

SYMPTOMS.--At first these cases are apt to be very obscure. An irregular febrile movement accompanied with rigors comes and goes, lasting for shorter or longer periods. The patients lose appetite, vomit occasionally, and become emaciated and anæmic. With this there may be pain over the region of one of the kidneys.

After a time a tumor may make its appearance in the position of one kidney--a tumor which can be felt through the anterior abdominal wall. If the abscess communicates with the pelvis of the kidney and the ureter remains pervious, pus and fragments of kidney-tissue are discharged with the urine. The pus is usually discharged at intervals, and at such times the size of the tumor diminishes. In other cases the pus burrows in other directions--into the retro-peritoneal connective tissue, the peritoneal cavity, the colon, or through the diaphragm into the lung. These cases are apt to run a protracted course and terminate fatally.

TREATMENT.--The only plan of treatment likely to cure the patient is a surgical one--either to extirpate the diseased kidney, or to cut down on the abscess and treat it on the antiseptic plan like any deep abscess.

4. Suppurative Pyelo-Nephritis with Cystitis.--LESIONS.--Usually both kidneys are affected. They are increased in size, and both the kidneys and their pelvis are congested. The mucous membrane of the pelvis is thickened and coated with pus or patches of fibrin. Scattered through the kidneys are abscesses and purulent foci of different sizes. The smallest foci are not visible to the naked eye, but with the microscope we find collections of pus-globules between the tubes, with swelling and degeneration of the epithelium within the tubes. The larger purulent foci look like white streaks or wedges running parallel to the tubes and surrounded by zones of congestion. The larger abscesses replace considerable portions of the kidney.

The ureters in some cases are inflamed, their walls thickened, their inner surface coated with pus or fibrin. The bladder presents regularly the lesions of acute or chronic cystitis.

ETIOLOGY.--For the production of this form of nephritis inflammation of the bladder seems to be necessary. How the inflammatory process is transmitted from the bladder to the kidneys is still uncertain, but it seems probable that it is effected by bacteria. The cases of cystitis in which a suppurative nephritis is likely to be developed are those due to strictures of the urethra, stone in the bladder, operations on the urethra, bladder, and uterus, paraplegia, gonorrhoea, and enlarged prostate.

SYMPTOMS.--When the nephritis occurs with cystitis due to stone in the bladder, strictures, or operations on the genito-urinary tract, the {101} symptoms are much the same. The patient has first the symptoms belonging to the cystitis, then he is attacked with rigors, followed by a febrile movement. The rigors are often repeated; the febrile movement is very irregular and often accompanied by profuse sweating. There is a rapid change in the general condition of the patient. He becomes much prostrated and emaciated from day to day. The face is drawn and anxious, the tongue dry and brown, the pulse rapid and feeble, and delirium is developed, and the patient finally dies in a condition resembling that of typhoid fever or of pyæmia. The urine is diminished in amount; it may be suppressed. It contains blood, pus, and mucus. The pus and mucus belong to the cystitis; the blood seems to be derived both from the kidneys and the bladder.

Cases of suppurative nephritis complicating gonorrhoea are fortunately not common, but several of them have been observed. Murchison[2] describes two cases, in both of which the cerebral symptoms were very marked--delirium, convulsions, and coma. I have seen one such case. The patient was a prostitute who came into the hospital with a specific vaginitis. After a few days she developed symptoms of an acute cystitis; then after a few more days she was attacked with rigors and a febrile movement, passed rapidly into the typhoid condition, and died. At the autopsy there were found acute cystitis, pyelitis, and numerous small abscesses in both kidneys.

[Footnote 2: Lancet, 1875, p. 80.]

When suppurative nephritis complicates the cystitis due to enlarged prostate, the clinical symptoms are somewhat different. The patients are usually men over fifty. They have generally suffered from the symptoms of enlarged prostate--retention of urine, either constant or intermittent, and more or less cystitis, with pus and mucus in the urine in varying amount. Sometimes, however, no such history is obtained; the patients assert that they have had no previous bladder trouble. The first symptom is diminution in the amount of urine passed and the appearance of blood. The quantity of urine is only a few ounces or it is completely suppressed. The blood is present in considerable amount; often the patients seem to pass pure blood instead of urine. The patients rapidly become prostrated and very anxious. There are usually no rigors, and there may be no febrile movement. After this the prostration becomes more marked, the pulse is rapid and feeble, the skin cold and bathed in perspiration, and the patients die in collapse at the end of a few days.

PROGNOSIS.--Suppurative nephritis secondary to cystitis is a very fatal disease; so far as I know, all the cases die.

TREATMENT.--The treatment for these cases is altogether a preventive one directed to the cystitis. In the cases of paraplegia, stone in the bladder, stricture, and enlarged prostate constant care must be used to prevent the accumulation of urine in the bladder and the development of cystitis.

In all cases of operation on the genito-urinary tract the supervention of cystitis is to be guarded against.

{102} PERINEPHRITIS.

The loose connective tissue which is situated around and beneath the kidney may become the seat of suppurative inflammation, and in this way abscesses of considerable size are formed.

LESIONS.--The connective tissue behind the kidney seems to be the usual point of origin of the inflammatory process, and it is here that the pus first collects. After the abscess has reached a certain size the suppuration seems to have a natural tendency to spread and the pus burrows in different directions--backward through the muscles; downward along the iliac fossa, even as far as the perineum and scrotum or vagina; forward into the peritoneal cavity, the colon, or the bladder; upward through the diaphragm. The kidney is either compressed by the abscess or its tissue also becomes involved in the suppurative process. The soft parts around the abscess become thickened.

ETIOLOGY.--Perinephritis is either secondary or primary. The secondary cases are due to extension of the inflammation from abscesses in the vicinity, such as are formed with caries of the spine, pelvic cellulitis, puerperal parametritis, perityphlitis, suppuration of the kidneys, and pyelo-nephritis. The primary cases occur after exposure to cold, after contusions over the lumbar region, great muscular exertion, and without discoverable cause. The lesion is said to complicate typhus and typhoid fever and smallpox. The disease occurs both in children and adults, most of the cases reported having been between the ages of twenty and forty years.

SYMPTOMS.--The disease begins regularly with pain and tenderness referred to the lumbar region on one side between the lower border of the ribs and the crest of the ilium, sometimes to a point above or below this. At about the same time are developed repeated rigors, a febrile movement with evening exacerbations, sweating, loss of appetite, vomiting, and prostration. These are all the symptoms for from one to two weeks. Then the skin over the lumbar region on one side becomes red and oedematous; the corresponding thigh is kept flexed and rigid, for any movement of it gives pain. Then the lumbar region becomes more and more swollen until fluctuation can be made out, and finally the abscess breaks through the skin. If such cases are left to run their course the abscess may reach a very large size. If the pus does not extend backward, but in some other direction, the symptoms are more obscure, for the local symptoms of an abscess in the back are absent.

If the abscess ruptures into the peritoneal cavity, the symptoms of acute general peritonitis are suddenly developed. If it perforates into the colon or bladder, the pus is discharged with the feces or the urine. If the perforation is through the diaphragm, there will be empyema, or the lung becomes adherent and pus is coughed up from the bronchi. As soon as the abscess is opened and the pus escapes the acute constitutional symptoms subside.

Trousseau believes that the inflammatory process sometimes stops short of the production of pus. In such cases of course there are no evidences of the formation of an abscess.

The disease may terminate in different ways: {103}

1. The inflammation may terminate in resolution (Trousseau).

2. The abscess is opened by operation or spontaneously and the patient recovers.

3. Although the abscess is opened either by the surgeon or spontaneously, the suppurative process continues and the patient dies exhausted, usually with waxy viscera.

4. Perforation into the peritoneum, the pleura, or the lung causes death.

TREATMENT.--The main point in treatment is to discover the abscess and to open it. The longer the suppurative process goes on and the larger the abscess, so much the worse is the prognosis. It is proper to explore with the aspirator after the disease has lasted for a few days, even if no fluctuation can be made out. The abscess is to be opened and treated on antiseptic principles.

{104}

HÆMATURIA AND HÆMOGLOBINURIA OR HÆMATINURIA.

BY JAMES TYSON, A.M., M.D.

The above terms are applied, the first to a condition of urine in which, of the constituents of blood, red discs at least are present; the second to that in which, while no corpuscles are found, blood coloring matter is abundant. Each of these conditions has been repeatedly observed as a distinct state at the moment when urine is passed; but it is also to be remembered that a true hæmaturia may, in the course of a few hours, become a hæmatinuria or hæmoglobinuria, by solution or disintegration of the red blood-discs. So far as I know, this subsequent solution and conversion can take place only in an alkaline urine; but as any urine through decomposition may become alkaline, it is evident that any hæmaturia may, in the course of time, become a hæmoglobinuria--a fact sometimes overlooked. I have, for example, known urine to be sent from Southern parts of the United States which, when shipped, contained blood-corpuscles, but which, when received in Philadelphia, contained no blood-discs, only large amounts of blood coloring matter. Especially does this occur in warm weather, when urine decomposes quickly. Such a hæmoglobinuria might be characterized as secondary. Doubtless, too, a more rapid solution is contributed to in some instances by the state of the blood-discs themselves, which are at times disintegrated before or at the moment they leave the blood-vessels, at others are intact, and at others, still, may be just ready to fall to pieces. In the hæmoglobinuria, where the blood-corpuscles have been secondarily dissolved and disintegrated, their remnants may be found in the shape of dark-brown or red granules, which form a sediment of varying bulk.

The immediate cause of this dissolved state of the blood-discs, where not due to the solvent action of an alkaline urine, appears to be the difference in degree of the cachexia which is at the bottom of the renal hemorrhagic tendency.

The term hæmaturia is applied to blood in the urine from whatever part of the urinary passages it may come, whether the bladder, ureters, kidney, or even urethra; whereas the blood in primary hæmoglobinuria always comes directly from the kidney.

In this paper I shall confine myself to the consideration of renal hæmaturia and hæmoglobinuria in the strict sense of the term; nor will I include such renal hæmaturia as constantly occurs in the first stage of acute Bright's disease.

Emphasizing again that all primary hæmoglobinurias are renal, it is {105} important to be able to say of a given hæmaturia whether it is renal or not. Even coarse methods are often sufficient to settle the question. Blood from the kidney, so far as my experience goes, is never discharged in the shape of clots, at least large enough to be recognized as such by the naked eye. More frequently coagula of blood are passed when hemorrhage takes place into the pelvis of the kidney. These coagula generally cause severe pain in their descent, and by this symptom are distinguished from coagula from the lower part of the ureter and bladder.

The smoky hue, which is characteristic of the presence of small quantities of blood in an acid urine, affords presumptive evidence that the blood is renal in its origin, because the conditions which are associated with blood from other parts of the genito-urinary tract are very apt to be associated with an alkaline urine, to which blood imparts a bright-red hue. This is, however, not invariable, as smoke-hued urine may be due to admixture of blood from the bladder and parts of the genito-urinary tract other than the kidney.

The microscope affords valuable assistance in determining the source of blood in the urine. In addition to blood-discs or their molecular débris, tube-casts made up of cemented blood-discs or their débris are very constantly, although not invariably, found in such urine. This evidence is conclusive, and, although sometimes wanting, the invariable absence of clots from blood descended from the kidney, together with the absence of irritation of the bladder, makes it usually quite easy to recognize a renal hæmaturia.

It is scarcely necessary to say that all urine containing blood or hæmoglobin contains albumen, the quantity varying with that of these substances present. Any further deviations from the normal composition of the urine are, in the main, due to admixture of other constituents of blood.

Causes which give rise to Hæmaturia and Hæmoglobinuria.

Hæmaturia is due to a variety of causes, which may be local or general. Local hæmaturia is caused by wounds, blows upon the kidney, or falls in which the kidney receives the force of the blow, as in striking the edge of a fence in falling; from cancer of the kidney, impacted calculus, parasites, embolism, acute Bright's disease; also poisoning from carbolic acid, cantharides, and mustard. General causes of hæmaturia are malaria, purpura, scurvy, blood-dyscrasias due to continued and eruptive fevers, especially typhus fever and smallpox, septicæmia and pyæmia, and cholera. Finally, it must be admitted that there is a hemorrhagic diathesis manifested by hæmaturia and hæmoglobinuria. Primary hæmoglobinuria may be produced by any of the general causes just named, or by the prolonged inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen and carbonic acid, and the introduction of numerous substances into the blood, as iodine, arsenic, etc.

While a rupture of the blood-vessels of the kidney may be supposed to be at the bottom of a certain proportion of cases of hæmaturia, it is by no means a necessary condition of their occurrence, as it is well known that in inflammations there may be extravasations of blood without rupture of {106} the blood-vessels. There is implied, however, in all these conditions an alteration of the vessel-walls which permits such transudation. Indeed, Ponfick[1] goes so far as to say that even transudations of hæmoglobin through the blood-vessels of the kidney are impossible without the presence of serious diffuse nephritis. There is every reason to believe, however, that simple alterations of the blood are of themselves sufficient to cause such transudations. Take, for instance, the extravasations in purpura, which are not confined to the vessels of the kidney. It is impossible to conceive inflammatory conditions so general as would have to be presupposed in this disease.

[Footnote 1: "Ueber die Gemeingefährlichkeit der essbaren Morchel," Virchow's Archiv, Bd. lxxxviii. S. 47.]

Hæmaturia from Local Causes.

It is unnecessary to consider in detail the local causes of hæmaturia. It is evident how injuries and blows upon the kidney, and impacted calculus may produce hemorrhage. The history of nephritic colic or of gravel in urine, along with blood, would suggest the latter cause. Nor is it necessary to detail the phenomena of hemorrhagic infarction which succeeds embolism and is the direct cause of hemorrhage into the tubules of the kidney. Hæmaturia is by no means a constant symptom in sarcoma and cancer of the kidney. A small amount of blood in the urine is a constant symptom in acute nephritis, where it is due to a rupture of the blood-vessels of the Malpighian tuft. It is accompanied by blood-casts and other symptoms of acute Bright's disease. Carbolic acid, cantharides, oil of mustard, and similar substances produce hæmaturia by causing congestion and inflammation of the kidney.

The parasites which may cause hemorrhage in the substance of the kidney are the Bilharzia hæmatobia, the Filaria sanguinis hominis, the Strongylus gigas, and possibly common intestinal worms which may reach the kidney through fistulous openings. The first is a thread-like worm three or four lines in length, which was discovered by Bilharz, and infests the small vessels of the mucous and submucous tissue of the veins of the intestinal tract, the pelvis of the kidney, ureter, bladder, and more rarely of the kidney itself. It is very frequent in Egypt, where Griesinger found it 117 times in 363 autopsies; also in South Africa (Cape of Good Hope), where it gives rise to an endemic hæmaturia. It has been studied by Bilharz, John Harley, and William Roberts.

The Filaria sanguinis hominis is a long, narrow microscopic worm, not wider than a red blood-disc, and one seventy-fifth of an inch long, which infests the blood. Hemorrhages result from its accumulation in the vessels, causing rupture. The cases which have been studied occurred mostly in India, China, and Australia.

The Strongylus gigas is a large worm, resembling the ordinary lumbricoid, but larger, the male being from ten to twelve inches long and one-fourth of an inch wide, while the female is sometimes more than a yard in length. It infests the kidneys and urinary passages of certain lower animals (the dog, wolf, horse, ox, etc.), but rarely those of man.

{107} Malarial Hæmaturia and Hæmoglobinuria.

SYNONYMS.--Intermittent hæmaturia; Paroxysmal hæmaturia; Malarial yellow fever; Swamp yellow fever; Paroxysmal congestive hepatic hæmaturia (Harley).

Perhaps the most important form of hæmaturia and hæmoglobinuria resulting from general causes is that due to malarial poisoning. I prefer the term malarial to intermittent or paroxysmal, not only because it more precisely indicates the cause of the condition, but also because the condition itself is by no means always intermittent, sometimes continuing without interruption until checked by appropriate treatment; and I have known it to continue uninterruptedly for a year, in spite of all treatment.

The first complete report of an undoubted instance of this affection appears to have been published by Dressler in 1854,[2] although incomplete and uncertain cases were reported prior to this date--one as early as 1832 by Elliotson.[3] G. Troup Maxwell of Ocala, Florida, writes me, in 1883, that he first observed cases in Florida thirty years ago, and published an article on the disease in the Oglethorpe Medical Journal, Savannah, Ga., July, 1860. George Harley[4] early contributed to our accurate knowledge of the subject in 1865, and since then numerous papers and reports of cases have appeared in English and American journals, the southern part of the United States being a fertile scene of the affection, while it is by no means rare in the Middle States.

[Footnote 2: "Ein Fall von intermittirender Albuminurie und Chromaturie," Virchow's Archiv, Bd. vi. S. 264, 1854.]

[Footnote 3: "Clinical Lecture on Diseases of the Heart, with Ague (and Hæmaturia)," London Lancet, 1832, p. 500.]

[Footnote 4: "Intermittent Hæmaturia," Medico-Chirurg. Trans. London, 1865.]

Two degrees of the disease are met with--a milder form, in which other symptoms as well as the hæmaturia are less pronounced, and of which instances occur in the Middle States as well as the South and West of the United States. Of this kind seem to be the cases studied by Harley and other English physicians. In addition to this, there is a second, more malignant, form, attended by great prostration, vomiting, and yellowness of the skin, along with copious discharges of bloody urine. Instances of the latter are numerous in the Southern States of this country, where they have recently been studied with much care; also in the East and West Indies and in tropical countries generally. In neither degree of the disease is it necessary that the red corpuscles of the blood should be present. They may be represented by their coloring matters alone, when the condition is called a hæmoglobinuria or a hæmaturia.

The Milder Form.--The subjects, in my experience of eight cases, have been, with one exception, men, and I believe the experience of others included more men than women. They are generally able to recall a history of exposure to malaria, and often of distinct attacks of malarial fever, intermittent or remittent. The hæmaturia appears suddenly, and when paroxysmal may occur daily or on alternate days or a couple of times a week, or even at longer intervals. When the attacks occur at longer intervals, say of ten days or two weeks, if the disease is left alone the interval is apt to gradually diminish until the passage of bloody urine becomes daily. The urine in the {108} morning may be perfectly clear, and at two o'clock is evidently bloody. It continues so through one or two acts of micturition, and then becomes clear again; or it may be bloody on rising and clear up by noon. Sometimes the bloody urine is preceded or accompanied by a sense of weariness and chilly feeling, or sometimes simply by cold hands and feet or by cold knees, or by pallor and blueness of the face, or by accelerated pulse, or by no other symptoms whatever. There is sometimes a sense of fulness in the region of the kidney and sacrum. The attacks are often induced by exposure to cold.

Harley states that in one of the two cases which he reported there was a slight jaundice, and in the second a "sallowness which appeared to be due to a disturbance of the hepatic functions," but in none of the cases which I have met was this symptom present. In the more malignant form occurring in the tropics and the Southern States of America, jaundice is a constant symptom.

While a majority of cases of malarial hæmaturia are intermittent, many are continuous, and of my eight cases only three were distinctly intermittent. One of these cases I published in a clinical lecture in the Philadelphia Medical Times as far back as September 1, 1871.

Negroes are not exempt from this milder form of the disease, as they seem to be from the more malignant form of the South. While writing this paper I was consulted by a negro thirty-one years old who had a true malarial hæmoglobinuria, which yielded promptly to the treatment by quinine. But this was the only negro out of seven cases.

The duration of the disease is very various, and if neglected may be indefinite. Stephen Mackenzie[5] reports a case which lasted twenty-three years.

[Footnote 5: "On Paroxysmal Hæmoglobinuria," London Lancet, vol. i., 1884, p. 156.]

PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERS OF THE URINE.--The urine is usually acid in reaction when passed, sometimes neutral, rarely alkaline, and ranges in specific gravity from 1010 to 1028. It is always albuminous, and always tinged by blood coloring matters, the depth of color varying from the trifling degree known as smoke-hued to a dark-red or claret color. Sometimes it is even darker, and is often compared to porter, though this degree of coloration is more characteristic of the malignant form. The urine deposits a dark, reddish-brown sediment, generally copious, but varies in quantity with the degree of coloration of the urine. This sediment is made up chiefly of red blood-discs or the granular débris resulting from their disintegration.

Casts of the uriniferous tubules are also often present. They are usually made up of aggregated red blood-discs or the granular matter referred to; but they may also be hyaline or hyaline with a moderate amount of granular matter attached. Granular urates also at times contribute to the sediment and also adhere to the casts. Renal and vesical epithelium may occur. Crystals of oxalate of lime and of uric acid are sometimes present, while blood-crystals have been found by Gull[6] and Grainger Stewart, and a hæmatin crystal once by Strong.[7]

[Footnote 6: Guy's Hosp. Reports, 1866, p. 381.]

[Footnote 7: British Med. Journ., 1878, vol. ii. p. 103.]

That red blood-discs are at times exceedingly scarce, and even totally absent at the very moment when urine is passed, is a well-recognized fact; while that the coloring matter present is still that of the blood, {109} even though no corpuscles are present, is easy of demonstration by the production of Teichmann's hæmin crystals,[8] by spectrum analysis, or by the guaiacum test.

[Footnote 8: Place a drop of the sediment upon a glass slide and allow it to dry. Mix thoroughly with a few particles of common salt and cover with a thin glass cover, under which allow two or three drops of glacial acetic acid to pass. Carefully warm the slide for a few seconds over a spirit-lamp, and when most of the acetic acid is evaporated, examine by the microscope. Hæmin crystals will be seen to crystallize out as the mixture cools.]

In the matter of the presence or absence of blood-discs, it is to be remembered that these may be present at the moment the urine is passed, but disappear by subsequent solution if the urine happens to be alkaline or becomes so secondarily. It is an interesting fact, too, that colorless blood-corpuscles are often present intact, even when red discs are absent. While I have frequently examined urine sent me from the South in which the coloring matter of the blood and no corpuscles were present, only one of the cases coming under my own observations furnished urine of this character. The proportion of urea varies, and bears no evident relation to the condition itself.

PATHOLOGY AND MORBID ANATOMY.--The pathology of malarial hæmaturia consists, as yet, chiefly of theoretical deductions. We can only conclude that the malarial poison acts upon the blood and blood-vessels, impairing the integrity of both. This goes so far occasionally as to produce an actual destruction of blood-discs, and always so alters the capillaries that they permit the transudation of blood-elements ordinarily retained.

The morbid anatomy is scarcely more precisely defined. Ponfick[9] goes so far as to say that the exudation of hæmoglobulin is not possible without the concurrence of marked diffuse nephritis. Recently Lebedeff[10] has sought to investigate the more minute alterations of the kidney in hæmoglobin exudation, but without very definite results. These, however, on the whole, seem to confirm Ponfick's view as to the presence of an inflammatory process, as also do those of Litten[11] and Lassar.[12]

[Footnote 9: "Ueber die Gemeingefährlichkeit der essbaren Morchel," Virchow's Archiv, Bd. lxxxviii. S. 476, 1882.]

[Footnote 10: "Zur Kenntniss der feineren Veränderungen der Nieren bei der Hämoglobinausscheidung," Virchow's Archiv, Bd. xci. S. 267, Feb., 1883.]

[Footnote 11: "Verhandl. des Vereins für innere Medicin," Deut. Med. Wochenschr., No. 52, Dec. 29, 1883.]

[Footnote 12: Ibid., No. 1, Jan. 3, 1884.]

DIAGNOSIS.--The diagnosis of this condition is not usually difficult. We have first to determine whether the hemorrhagic discharge is from the kidney rather than the bladder or ureters. The former is the case when tube-casts are found. But tube-casts are not always present even when the hemorrhage is from the kidneys. The absence of clots and of vesical irritation, and of pain in the course of the ureters, is characteristic of blood from the kidneys. Finally, all hæmoglobinurias are renal.

It being certain that the blood comes from the kidney, we have to distinguish it from that due to cancer, to calculus-irritation, and to cachexias, as purpura and scurvy; or to grave forms of infectious disease, septicæmia, pyæmia, etc.; or, finally, to poisonous substances introduced into the blood, such as arsenic, iodine, arseniuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid and carbonic oxide gas, and even certain species of edible fungi.

The diagnosis is greatly aided if it is found we have to do with a {110} hæmoglobinuria rather than a hæmaturia. For although the former condition is produced by toxic and septic agencies of another kind, the attending symptoms, when it is thus produced, are so characteristic that it is not likely that error can be made.

To aid in distinguishing it from cancer we have the history of malarial exposure, and often that of other forms of malarial disease; and, notwithstanding the seeming drain upon the system, none of the cases I have ever seen present the profound anæmia of cancer. The bloody discharge in cancer of the kidney is always a true hæmaturia; there are always blood-discs in the urine. There is often pain in the region of the kidney in cancer, but never in malarial hæmaturia.

In calculous disease there is almost always pain before or during the hæmaturic attack, and characteristic crystalline sediments often appear in the urine.

The disease, being comparatively rare in this latitude, is sometimes overlooked on this account. Of the 8 cases which I have noted during sixteen years, 5 originated in Pennsylvania, 1 in New Jersey, 1 in Delaware, and 1 in North Carolina.

TREATMENT.--The treatment is distinctly that of malarial disease, and I have seldom seen more brilliant and satisfactory results than have followed the use of quinine in a case accurately determined, although such success is not invariable; and I have known the disease to resist for a long time the most thorough and judicious use of anti-malarial remedies. Usually, however, I take hold of a case of this kind with considerable confidence. When there are distinct remissions my practice has been to administer 16 to 20 grains of sulphate of quinia in the usual manner of anticipation of the paroxysm in intermittent fever--from 3 to 5 grains every hour until the required amount is taken; the whole amount may be taken in two doses, or even in one dose. Where there is no distinct remission I more usually direct 3 to 5 grains every three hours, until the hemorrhage ceases or decided cinchonism is produced.

The advantage well known to accrue in malarial disease from the combination of mercurials with quinine applies to hemorrhagic malaria as well, although I usually reserve the mercurial until I have ascertained whether the simple quinine treatment answers the purpose. If the usual method fails, I give 8 or 10 grains of calomel in the evening, followed by a saline in the morning, before reinstituting the quinine treatment. In the case of the colored man alluded to who had malarial hæmoglobinuria 36 grains of quinine failed to break the attack; but the same quantity, given after 10 grains of calomel had acted, succeeded.

Where these means failed I have not found the other methods of treatment commonly resorted to in obstinate malarial disease to be any more efficient. I allude to the treatment by arsenic or by iron and arsenic. Indeed, in the only two cases in which, after failure with the quinine treatment, iron and arsenic were used at my suggestion, they failed absolutely. In the one case, under the care of James L. Tyson, this treatment was carried out most faithfully. After four weeks' treatment with quinine without effect, Fowler's solution was given, at first in 5-drop doses three times daily, subsequently increased to 10 and 15, along with 20- and 30-drop doses of tincture of the chloride of iron, until oedema of the eyelids occurred, when the arsenic was discontinued, but {111} the iron continued. In two or three days the arsenic was recommenced in 3- and 4-drop doses for three or four weeks longer without effect. Fluid extract of ergot in 20-drop doses was then substituted for the iron, alternating with the arsenic for two weeks longer, when some slight favorable change was apparent, but it was temporary. Repeatedly throughout the treatment the patient complained of weariness and backache, cold feet and knees, headache and acceleration of pulse, and a feeling of utter wretchedness; and then again he would feel quite comfortable for a day or two, but with little or no change in the urine, except occasionally in the morning, when it would sometimes be quite light-hued, but after breakfast would again assume its bloody character. A sojourn at the seaside for two weeks was without effect.

It will appear from the above that ergot, which has been found useful in some forms of hæmaturia, is of little service here, as is attested by two other cases in which I tried it faithfully. At the same time, it is a remedy which should be tried in case of failure with others.

The usual astringents, mineral and vegetable, of known efficacy in the treatment of hemorrhagic conditions, should be used alone or in conjunction with the specific anti-malarial treatment after the latter has been found of itself insufficient. To this class of remedies belong the mineral acids, persulphate of iron, acetate of lead, alum, gallic acid, catechu, kino, the astringent natural mineral waters, etc.

Rest is certainly an important adjuvant in the treatment of this form of malarial disease. I have known a recurrence to take place after a long drive.

It is claimed for many natural mineral waters that hemorrhage from the kidneys is one of the affections cured by their use. Chalybeate and alum springs might be expected to be of advantage by the local action of these astringents in their transit through the kidneys, and they frequently are. The following case illustrates their efficiency: The patient was a lawyer who consulted me in June, 1881, at the suggestion of W. W. Covington of North Carolina. He had frequently had chills, and a congestive chill in 1873. Three months before I saw him he began to pass bloody urine. He had no other symptoms, except a soreness and weakness in the neighborhood of the sacrum, extending into the outer part of the left thigh. The urine passed for me at the time of his visit was dark reddish-brown in color, acid in reaction, had a specific gravity of 1028, highly albuminous, and deposited a sediment of almost tarry consistence, which was made up almost entirely of blood-corpuscles. There were no tube-casts. He had been a dyspeptic since seventeen years of age, and medicines disagreed with him; but he was treated faithfully with quinine, iron, arsenic, ergot, benzoate of lime, all without the slightest effect. At the end of about a year from the time he consulted me he heard of the Jackson Spring, located in Moore county, North Carolina, fifteen miles distant from Manly Station on the Raleigh and Augusta Railroad. He went there, and remained one week. He stated that for the first two or three days the water acted decidedly on his kidneys, and he voided a number of clots of blood. On the third day all traces of blood disappeared, and it recurred but once since, on a very cold day in November last, but again disappeared after a day or two in the house. Unfortunately, no precise analysis of this water seems to have been made, but {112} from what my friend writes it evidently contains iron and sulphur, and magnesia is also said to be present. It is promptly diuretic. Since this occurred I have used the water of alum springs in other instances with advantage.[13]

[Footnote 13: See the report of a case treated successfully by Rockbridge alum-water by Radcliffe, Med. News, Jan. 12, 1884.]

The following are some of the chalybeate and alum springs the waters of which may be expected to be of service in hæmaturia: Orchard Acid Springs, New York; Rockbridge Alum Springs, Pulaski Alum Springs, Bath Alum Springs, Stribling Springs, and Bedford Alum Springs, all in Virginia. In all of these waters iron and alum are both present, accompanied, in many instances, by free sulphuric acid, by which their efficiency is increased. In one of my cases the hemorrhage disappeared temporarily under the use of the water from the Bedford Springs, Penna., but again returned. These waters contain a little iron, but no alum. Subsequently, the same patient was promptly relieved by quinine, which had not been previously tried.

But the cases most promptly relieved by the alum waters are the non-malarial cases depending, upon hemorrhagic diathesis without other local disease. A remarkable instance of this kind was related to me by letter by J. Macpherson Scott of Hagerstown, Md. After enormous doses of quinine had been used under the supposition that it was malarial, it was promptly and totally cured.

Malignant Malarial Hæmaturia.

The second more serious form of this disease, as it occurs in the tropics and the southern part of the United States, is characterized by such increased intensity of all the symptoms that it may be well called malignant. Singularly, however, the disease has seemed to be much more prevalent during the last fifteen years. My attention was first called to it in September, 1868, when I received specimens of urine and the history of some cases from R. D. Webb of Livingston, Ala., who wrote also that it was not known in that part of his State prior to 1863 or 1864.

In this, as in the milder form, there is a distinct but more invariable history of malarial exposure, and the attack often begins as an ordinary case of chills and fever, there being often one or two paroxysms before the hæmaturia appears. At other times the hemorrhage ushers in the disease suddenly. The urine is often black and almost tarry in consistence, and passed in unusually large quantities--it is said as much as a pint every fifteen or twenty minutes until a couple of quarts have been passed, or one or two gallons in the course of twelve hours. But after twenty-four hours the quantity diminishes. Epistaxis sometimes occurs, but is not often profuse. Distressing nausea, and vomiting of bilious and even black matter, like that of black vomit, also occur. Intense jaundice rapidly supervenes--said to come on sometimes in the course of an hour, often in from two to six hours. The tongue is brown and dry. The bowels are at times constipated, and at others loose. Although the patient may be feverish at first, with a temperature of 104° to 106°, and the skin dry, the pulse rapidly becomes small and feeble until it is {113} scarcely perceptible. Drowsiness and coma sometimes intervene, and at others the mind is clear until the moment of death, which frequently supervenes within twenty-four or sixty hours; or the symptoms may subside, to be repeated again the next day if not prevented by treatment. If recovery takes place, which it sometimes does, and lately more frequently, convalescence is slow and tedious, the patient remaining for weeks in an enfeebled and anæmic state.

In this form, especially, of the disease it often happens that the coloring matter and the débris of blood-discs only are found in the urine, very few and often no entire ones being discernible: in other words, we have a true hæmoglobinuria or hæmatinuria. The urine is of course albuminous. A specimen recently received from North Carolina and analyzed by Wormley contained no corpuscles, but revealed the spectroscopic band characteristic of hæmoglobin. It contained 2½ per cent. of urea. The specific gravity of the urine ranges between 1010 and 1020, being lower when it is copious.

As to the jaundice, it is evidently a hæmatogenetic, and not a hepatogenetic, form with which we have to deal. It is due, not to the retention of bile, but to the disintegration of blood-corpuscles and the solution of their coloring matter, which diffuses through the tissues and stains them yellow or yellowish-green. This form too, apparently, is more frequent in males, and negroes appear to be exempt. This is not the case with the milder form, for it will be remembered that one of my patients was a negro.

Autopsies reveal the same intense yellow coloration of internal organs--lungs, liver, spleen, stomach, kidneys--anæmia rather than congestion, while the blood is dark-hued and is indisposed to coagulate. The spleen is often enlarged.

The TREATMENT for the breaking of the paroxysm is pre-eminently quinine or quinine with mercurials, and although this does not always succeed, there seems to be no other remedy. The quinine may be given hypodermically. The nausea has been controlled by morphia and lime-water, by carbolic acid, and by creasote. In addition, restorative measures are necessary, including the free use of stimulants. Turpentine has been used in large doses (fluidrachm j), it is said with advantage, in Alabama.

{114}

CHYLURIA.

BY JAMES TYSON, A.M., M.D.

The term chyluria is applied to a condition of urine in which the secretion is admixed with fat in a minute state of subdivision, whence the urine acquires a milky or chylous appearance. The proportion of fat varies greatly between such as gives a mere opalescence to the secretion and that which makes it absolutely indistinguishable, in appearance, from milk, while even the characteristic odor and taste of urine are often wanting. The further resemblance of such urines to milk is found in the fact that, on standing, a cream-like substance rises to the surface. On the other hand, a spontaneous coagulation into a jelly-like substance containing fibrin proves an unmistakable relation to blood.

The chemical composition of such a urine, having a specific gravity of 1013 and neutral in reaction, is given by Beale,[1] as follows:

Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 947.4 Solid matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.6 ----- Urea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.73 Albumen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.00 Uric acid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Extractive matter with uric acid . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.66 Fat insoluble in hot and cold alcohol, but soluble in ether . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.20 | Fat insoluble in cold alcohol . . . . . . . . . . 2.70 | 13.90 Fat soluble in cold alcohol . . . . . . . . . . . 2.00 | Alkaline sulphates and chlorides . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.65 Alkaline phosphates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | Earthy phosphates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 4.66

[Footnote 1: Urinary and Renal Derangements and Calculous Disorders, Philada., 1885, p. 73.]

Such urines are of course albuminous, as will have been seen from the table. They therefore coagulate when boiled or on the addition of an acid. They also exhibit a tendency to spontaneous coagulation more or less complete, which is apt to be followed by later disintegration of the clot. The proportion of solids is larger than in ordinary urines.

Microscopically, the urine is found to contain, in addition to its usual elements, immense numbers of molecular particles easily soluble in ether, and therefore fatty in their composition. It may be rendered perfectly clear by the addition of ether, and again approximately milky after evaporating the ether and shaking the residue; but now the microscope shows the oil in the shape of oil-drops and not molecules. Oil-drops are also sometimes sparsely present in the fresh fluid, but the fatty particle is commonly molecular. Indeed, the molecules are commonly so small that an {115} aggregated mass of them appears like a delicate cloud under the microscope, rather than a collection of individual particles. Blood-corpuscles may also be present, sometimes in sufficient quantity to produce a distinct pink coloration, but no unusual proportion of leucocytes is common. The pink tinge, and even an almost bloody appearance, is very apt to precede the chyluria. This bloody character sometimes gradually increases until the chyluria has become a hæmaturia, so that we have sometimes a chyluria spoken of as a first stage of hæmaturia. Tube-casts do not occur. Chyluria is seldom constant, and a specimen of urine passed a couple of hours after one white as milk may be, again, perfectly clear and in all respects natural. Thus, a second specimen, passed by the same patient as that of which the analysis is given above, was almost clear. It had a specific gravity of 1010 and a slightly acid reaction, and contained a mere trace of deposit, consisting of a little epithelium, a few cells larger than lymph-corpuscles, and a few small cells, probably minute fungi. Not the slightest precipitate was produced by the application of heat or addition of nitric acid. The following is Beale's analysis:

Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 978.8 Solid matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2 ----- Urea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.95 Albumen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Uric acid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Extractive matters with uric acid . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.31 Fat insoluble in hot and cold alcohol, but soluble in ether| Fat insoluble in cold alcohol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | .00 Fat soluble in cold alcohol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | Alkaline sulphates and chlorides . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.34 Alkaline phosphates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.45 Earthy phosphates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

DISTRIBUTION OF THE DISEASE.--By far the largest majority of instances of the disease originate in tropical and subtropical climates. Thus, India, China, and South America--and in South America, Brazil, and Guiana--are countries in which it is common. It is said to be rarer on the coast of South America than in the interior; yet it is especially partial to insular countries, and most of the cases observed in this country originate in the West Indies--in Barbadoes and Cuba, in Bermuda and the island of Trinidad. Many cases occur in Bahia, Guadeloupe, Madagascar, the Isle of Bourbon, and Mauritius. Indeed, the first important study of the subject was based on cases observed in the latter island by Chapotin.[2] In Africa both Egypt and the Cape of Good Hope are favorite localities, and in Australia, Brisbane has furnished many cases.

[Footnote 2: Thèse, Topographie médicale de l'Ile de France, 1812.]

At the same time, cases do originate in temperate climates, and although the disease is rare in Europe and North America, Dickinson has collected five cases from his own practice or that of others, which undoubtedly originated in England. I know of but one case of certain North American origin, that of a woman reported by McConnell to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Montreal, April 27, 1883. She was thirty-three years old, a native of the province of Ontario, and had had the disease eleven years. At the time of her death, which appears to have been from tubercular phthisis, there were cavities in the apices of both lungs.

{116} SUBJECT'S ATTACKED.--There seems no election as to nativity, natives and foreigners being indiscriminately attacked in the countries in which it occurs. There is some difference of opinion as to whether the disease is more frequent in males or females; which is a reason for believing that it occurs with nearly equal frequency in both.

It is more common in middle life, but Prout reports an instance in a child eighteen months old, and Rayer one in a woman at seventy-eight years. She had had it, however, since she was twenty-five, or about fifty-three years. Dickinson was consulted with regard to a boy of five, and mentions a case fatal at twelve. Roberts says: "Chylous urine prevails mostly in youth and middle age."[3] Of 30 cases collected by him, 3 were under twenty; 7 between twenty and thirty; 11 between thirty and forty; 6 between forty and fifty; and 3 over fifty.

[Footnote 3: Urinary and Renal Diseases, 4th ed., Philada., 1885, p. 344.]

The subjects of the disease are apt to be pale and relaxed as to their tissues, but while this may be a possible result of the disease, it can hardly be regarded as a predisposing cause.

PATHOLOGY AND ETIOLOGY.--The precise mode in which chyluria is brought about is unknown. It is to be inferred, in view of our existing knowledge, that there has been produced, in some way, in each instance a communication between the urinary and chyliferous systems, although exactly where such communication is has as yet only been guessed at. It may be in the kidney itself, or its pelvis, or the ureter, or in the bladder. Cases originating in the tropics have been found associated with elephantiasis, but this is not very frequent. Dilatation of cutaneous lymphatics, producing cutaneous papules and vesicles and a discharge of lymph from them, has also been noted coincident with chyluria.

Prout,[4] among the earlier writers on this subject, and more recently Bence Jones,[5] Waters, Bouchardat, Robin, Bernard, and Egel, did not consider a positive lesion necessary, but ascribed the condition to a vice of nutrition and blood-making, accompanied by a slight consequent textural alteration in the blood-vessels of the kidney, through which the elements of the chyle transuded. Waters[6] says that "the main pathological feature of the complaint is a relaxed condition of the capillaries of the kidney," which permits the transudation.

[Footnote 4: Stomach and Renal Diseases, 4th ed., London, 1843.]

[Footnote 5: Lectures on Pathology and Therapeutics, 1868, p. 256.]

[Footnote 6: Med.-Chir. Trans., vol. xiv. p. 221, 1862.]

The results of examination of the blood, in cases of chylous urine, by Bence Jones, Rayer, and Crevaux, who found in certain instances an excess of fat, have been quoted in support of these views, but these examinations seem to have been microscopical and not chemical, and the results have not been confirmed by recent observers. Such views were also upheld on theoretical grounds by Bouchardat,[7] based on the greater commonness of the disease in warm climates. He reasoned that when the heat-producing elements, whether absorbed from food or produced by metamorphoses of other proximate principles, are in excess, and an elevated external temperature does not favor their consumption, their elimination is attempted by certain organs, notably the liver and kidneys. The effort by the kidneys seems, however, to be attended by a structural change in the blood-vessels, as the result of which blood is {117} eliminated with fat, especially at the beginning of the disease. Later the blood disappears, but the albumen remains some time longer, disappearing finally with the fat.

[Footnote 7: Ann. de Thérapeutique, 1862.]

Bernard and Robin also compared the blood of such cases to that of geese artificially fattened, being that condition of blood which is normal after digestion but transient. Egel also held similar views, ascribing the imperfect elaboration to the effect of hot climates.

Gubler[8] first suggested that chylous urine was due to a passage of chyle directly into the urinary passages, and that this was immediately preceded by a dilatation of the renal lymphatics similar to that known to occur on the surface of the body and attended by the local flow alluded to.

[Footnote 8: Gazette médicale de Paris, 1858, p. 646.]

Vandyke Carter,[9] of Bombay, suggested that the communication was between the lacteals and lymphatics of the lumbar region and those of the kidney. Those who have seen the semi-diagrammatic drawing of a dissection of the lymphatics as seen from behind, in the remarkable case of Stephen Mackenzie,[10] cannot fail to be impressed with the probability of such communication.

[Footnote 9: Med.-Chir. Trans., vol. xlv., 1862.]

[Footnote 10: Trans. Path. Soc. of London, vol. xxxiii. p. 394, 1882.]

That a chylous urine is the direct result of a discharge of chyle into the urinary passages at some point between the kidney and the neck of the bladder, is further rendered likely by the experience of W. H. Mastin of Mobile, Alabama, with a case of chylous hydrocele: W. H. W., a native of Alabama, aged twenty-two, presented himself with a hydrocele. Mastin tapped the sac and drew off a white milk-like fluid, which was sent to me for examination. It was perfectly white and undistinguishable by the eye from milk. Upon microscopical and chemical examination, I found it presented all the physical and chemical characters of chyle. Six months later, the sac having refilled, Mastin evacuated eight ounces more of the same fluid--some of which was again sent to me--and then laid open the sac freely. Examining the cavity carefully, he found it smooth, polished, and pearly white, but at its upper portion, just where it began to be reflected over the testis, was a small, round, granular-looking mass about the size of an ordinary English pea. This he sliced off with a pair of scissors, and at once recognized the patulous mouths of three or four small vessels which did not bleed. These he dissected back for a short distance, and found that they passed into the connective tissue around the upper border of the testis. He then passed a ligature around the mass and brought the ends of the ligature to the outside, excised all the front wall of the tunica, and closed the sac. The patient recovered, and there was no return of the hydrocele. Although it is to be regretted that the patulous vessels were not watched for a few minutes, I do not think there can be any reasonable doubt that there was here a lymphatic varix, and that the chylous fluid in the tunica was the result of leakage through its walls. Since the patient had had gonorrhoea, Busey,[11] in his remarks on this case, suggests that the obstruction to the onward movement of the lymph, and the cause, therefore, of the dilatation and rupture, was inflammation attacking a single gland or an area of lymphatics.

[Footnote 11: Occlusion and Dilatation of Lymph-Channels, by Samuel C. Busey: A series of papers reprinted for private distribution from the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, from Nov., 1876, to March 1878.]

{118} If it be acknowledged, then, that in chyluria some direct communication must exist between the lymphatic and urinary systems, how is this communication brought about? Various causes have been supposed at different times to be responsible for this condition, among them traumatism in its various modes of occurrence, such as being thrown from a horse. Mental shock has also been held responsible. So, also, syphilis and hereditary tendency. But most cases still remained unaccounted for when, on August 4, 1866, Wücherer first detected in the chylous urine of a woman in the Misericordia Hospital at Bahia an unknown worm. In 1872 it was announced that Timothy R. Lewis had found in the blood, and also in the urine, of a person suffering with chyluria in Calcutta, a delicate thread-like worm about 1/70 of an inch long and 1/3500 of an inch wide. This observation was confirmed by Palmer and Charles. Lewis named it Filaria sanguinis hominis. Since then the filaria has been found in the blood and urine of many cases. Lewis found six in a single drop of blood from the ear, and estimated 700,000 as approximately correct for the whole body. But Mackenzie calculated that there were in the blood of his patient from 36,000,000 to 40,000,000 embryo filariæ. These minute nematodes, discovered by Wücherer and Lewis, proved to be, as was indeed early suspected, the larvæ of a larger filaria which was discovered by Bancroft of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in December, 1876, first in a lymphatic abscess in the arm, and afterward in the fluid of hydrocele of persons infested with the smaller worm. The parent worm is about the thickness of a human hair and three or four inches long. It was named, by Cobbold, Filaria Bancrofti. Lewis himself found, in August following, a male and female of the parent worm, in a scrotum infiltrated with chylous fluid, in a case of elephantiasis. The female contained ova with embryos precisely like those found in the blood and urine. The worms are viviparous, but abortions seem frequent, ova being frequently discharged unhatched.

It has been rendered highly probable, by the researches, first, of Manson in China, and later of Lewis in India and Sonsino in Egypt, that the filaria in its fully-developed form is introduced into the stomach and intestines of man with water. Thence it makes its way into the blood and lacteal system, where it reproduces the embryo filariæ. These embryonic or larval filariæ are taken from the human blood by a mosquito, in the body of which it undergoes further development, after which the perfect Filaria Bancrofti is deposited in water, through which it again reaches the stomach of man, and thus the disease is perpetuated.

One of the most singular features in the history of the filaria is its nocturnal habit. It is found in the blood only at night, unless, as Mackenzie has shown, night be converted into day--that is, if the hours of sleeping and waking be reversed. In Mackenzie's case the worms appeared about seven o'clock in the evening, increased up to midnight, and disappeared by eight or nine o'clock in the morning. What becomes of them at the time when they are undiscoverable in the blood is as yet unknown.

Acknowledging filariæ to be the essential cause of chyluria, the precise method in which they operate to cause the obstruction, dilatation, and rupture of the lymphatics is a matter of speculation. The embryo filariæ are so lithe and small that they move among the corpuscles {119} apparently without harming them, but the ova in which the embryos lie coiled up, and which are often discharged unhatched, are large enough to cause obstruction in the smaller lymphatics and lymph-passages of the lymphatic glands, and thus cause the phenomena of chyluria, as well as of the other diseases of the lymphatic system with which it is often associated, or which may occur independently of it, such as elephantiasis, cutaneous lymph-vesicles with their chylous and lymphous discharges, lymph scrotum, chylous hydrocele, and other diseases of the lymphatics. Indeed, the total number of affections other than chyluria which are found associated with filariæ exceed those of chyluria. Among the diseases with which it is said to be associated is erysipelas.

It is evident, therefore, that notwithstanding the fact that the discovery of the Filaria sanguinis hominis has shed a flood of light upon the subject of chyluria, the fact must not be overlooked that not a few cases of the disease have occurred in which the most careful search has failed to find this parasite in the blood. Careful examinations, during waking and sleeping hours, have been made without result, so that we cannot deny altogether the possibility of the disease occurring independent of filariæ as the cause. It is common, therefore, to speak of parasitic and non-parasitic chyluria.

On the other hand, the filaria embryo is often found in the blood of persons apparently in perfect health. Manson tells us that out of every ten Chinamen taken at random, at Amoy, the blood of one will contain filariæ.

MORBID ANATOMY.--There can hardly be said to be any morbid anatomy of chyluria, unless we regard the lymphatic lesions which sometimes accompany it as a part of the disease. Again and again do we read the reports of autopsies at which the kidneys were found normal, and where lesions have been noted they were such as are found due to other causes, and the coincidence was accidental.

SYMPTOMATOLOGY.--Apart from the characteristic urine of the condition, there are no symptoms which can be regarded as in any way peculiar to the disease. The mode of onset is usually sudden, and yet many patients experience no symptoms whatever, and would be quite unaware that they were afflicted in any way, were they not aware of the fact that they are passing lactescent urine. Since the discharge is, however, a drain of very valuable nutrient and force-producing material, most patients sooner or later gradually grow weaker; and this symptom of weakness becomes sometimes very marked, so that they fall into a condition of extreme debility, even to fainting on exertion.

Another symptom sufficiently frequent to deserve mention is pain in lumbar region, sometimes very severe, sometimes on one side, at others on both.

Painful micturition, due to obstruction, is also a symptom traceable directly to the condition of the urine. The disposition of chylous urine to coagulate has already been alluded to. The coagulation taking place in the bladder, it is the clot which sometimes obstructs the urethra and makes urination difficult or impossible. Plugs of coagulum are ejected, sometimes with considerable force, after prolonged straining, and with this comes relief to the symptoms, which may be reproduced through the operation of the same cause.

{120} Other symptoms which are occasionally present may have an accidental relation to the affection, while they may be due to it. Such are headache, nausea, and other gastric symptoms.

Mention has been made, too, of the concurrence of superficial lymphatic leakage, especially on the lower part of the abdomen, the thighs, and the legs. Such leakage is often from little vesicular elevations which are evidently dilated lymphatic vessels. The presence of such leakage should suggest the examination of urine for lesser degrees of chyluria. In like manner, the urine should be examined in case of elephantiasis, lymph-scrotum, and chylous hydrocele, with which also chyluria is sometimes associated.

The effect of intercurrent febrile states, whether symptomatic of local inflammation, as of the lungs, or whether the result of the idiopathic fevers, has often a singular effect on chyluria in causing its disappearance for a time. It would seem that states of high vascular tension, however induced, tend to make it cease.

While chyluria has made its appearance, for the first time, in a number of cases during pregnancy, this condition in other instances has caused it to disappear, especially toward the later months; whence it would seem that the pressure of the rising womb has a favorable effect.

The DIAGNOSIS of chyluria consists in the recognition of the chylous state of the urine. This, ordinarily very easily recognized, might be taken in its slight degrees for phosphatic or uratic or purulent conditions of the urine, and vice versâ. The disappearance of the first on the addition of acids, of the second on the application of heat or alkalies, will resolve any doubt, while the microscope will detect the pus-corpuscles in the last. None of the reagents named will dissolve the fatty molecules of a chyluria, while ether will cause the fluid to clear up completely.

The PROGNOSIS is usually favorable. Very rarely is an attack fatal, and when such is the case it is from exhaustion--from the drain to which the system is subject. Tubercular phthisis is therefore a not infrequent immediate cause of death.

TREATMENT.--On the supposition that filariæ are the essential cause of the disease, the rational indication would be first to destroy them by the introduction into the blood of some parasiticide; and, second, to repair the lesion of communication between the lymphatic system and the urinary passages. As yet no agent is known which would not be as fatal to the host as to the filaria, if used in sufficient quantity to destroy the latter; nor has it ever been possible to find the point of communication between the two systems, although treatment has been directed to producing closure of such communication, and with some show of success. Thus, in a case under his care Dickinson of London injected into the empty bladder twelve ounces of a solution of perchloride of iron, containing at first two drachms of the tincture to the whole quantity, gradually increased to four drachms. The solution was retained in the bladder for from eight to twelve minutes with little or no inconvenience. The operation was repeated almost daily for twelve days. The effect was always to check the milky flow and to substitute a clear urine. But after the operation had been repeated a certain number of times there was a decided rise of temperature, with headache, nausea, lumbar pain, hæmaturia, and albuminuria which continued a short {121} time after the hæmaturia ceased. Singularly, too, with the subsidence of these symptoms, the chyluria remained absent for some time. The injections were resumed on its return, and each time were followed by relief. In the course of their use, however, the strength of the solution was increased to an ounce of the perchloride to twelve ounces of water, and the strongest solutions were retained in the bladder for as much as an hour, the weaker longer. Ultimately, however, the use of the injections became so painful that they had to be discontinued.

Another measure, employed by Bence Jones, was abdominal pressure by means of a belt. This also, in his experience, relieved the lumbar pain. In his case, which was about eight years under observation, Dickinson applied the pressure by a sort of tourniquet about an inch below the umbilicus. This lessened, though it did not stop, the pulsation in the femoral arteries. It also was successful at first, the chylosity lessening, and finally ceasing, but on the removal of the belt the chylous character gradually returned, and in sixteen hours was as bad as before. Repeated trials were followed by the same transient effect, but no cure. Under this treatment, however, combined with a liberal diet and rest, the patient gained many pounds in weight, and was able to leave the hospital and resume her occupation as dressmaker, the pursuit of which, and the absence of the favorable conditions of hospital-life, as invariably caused a return of the symptom and its resulting debility, which again caused her to seek admission.

Rest, therefore, and an abundance of good nourishing food, tend at least to counteract the exhausting effects of the disease, and even to cause the discharge to cease. Tonics, and especially chalybeates, are indicated for the former purpose.

As the relaxing effects of warm climates and warm weather seem to predispose to the condition and to aggravate it, removal to cooler latitudes and places is indicated.

Astringents, internally administered, naturally suggested themselves at an early date, and were used by Prout, Priestley, and Bence Jones. The latter especially thought gallic acid useful. He reports a case in which the disease did not return after its long-continued use. Goodwin of Norwich, England, also reports a case in which the chyluria was controlled by the gallic acid, but returned in four or five days after the remedy was discontinued. It again disappeared on resuming the drug, and the patient could at any time render the urine nearly normal in appearance by taking it. The case was lost sight of before it could be regarded as cured. Waters also reports a case which apparently recovered completely after nine weeks' treatment by gallic acid. He gave at first 30 grains a day, which were gradually increased to 135 a day, and then gradually reduced.

Other astringents which have been used are tannic acid, matico, or acetate of lead, nitrate of silver, the mineral acids.

Mangrove was successfully used in a case related by Bunyan of British Guiana. It was used in the shape of a decoction at the suggestion of a negress, an ounce being taken four times a day. In seven days the patient was so much relieved that the remedy was discontinued for two days, but the symptoms returned. They again disappeared when the drug was resumed, and two subsequent attacks were immediately cut short by the remedy. Roberts suggests that it may act as a parasiticide, {122} and suggests larger and sustained doses of the iodide of potassium for the same purpose.

Retention of urine, when present, should be treated like the same symptoms under other circumstances, by catheterization, washing out the bladder with tepid water, warm fomentations, and similar measures. It has even been suggested to wash out the bladder with ether under these circumstances.

As it seems impossible for the embryo filariæ to develop in the human body into the fully-developed Filaria Bancrofti, it is evident that with the death of the latter, which must occur sooner or later, the production of embryos must cease, while those previously produced must sooner or later also die, and in this way a spontaneous cure take place--just as a person infested with trichinous disease will ultimately recover if the introduction of the trichinæ cease and he is able to survive the irritation caused by the presence of the parasite in his muscles. In this manner we may account for the spontaneous disappearance of the disease in so many instances where all treatment has proved unavailing.

{123}

DISEASES OF THE BLADDER.

BY EDWARD L. KEYES, M.D.

Inflammation.

The bladder is a patient organ, and rather slow to resent injuries from within or without. It never inflames on account of such general causes as the influence of cold, anæmia, cachexia, or a depressed state of the general system. Any of these causes may act as adjuvants, but alone they are not effective. Thus a chilling of the legs, inoperative upon an individual with a healthy bladder, is a prime factor in exciting inflammation in the bladder of an old man with an enlarged prostate; while the simple passage of a sound upon an individual suffering from anæmia might provoke a cystitis which the same traumatic cause would not have produced upon a patient in a thoroughly healthy condition.

Yet inflammation of the bladder is very common. It is sometimes a malady, more often a symptom produced by some other malady (stricture, prostatic enlargement, stone), and only to be overcome by detecting and removing its cause. The causes of inflammation of the bladder therefore include nearly all the maladies to which the bladder is liable.

The varieties of cystitis take name from that tissue of the viscus which is involved, and from the modality of the inflammation.

We have--

| suppurative; | Acute----| diphtheritic; 1. Cystitis mucosa | | gangrenous. | | Chronic--| catarrhal; | membranous.

2. Interstitial cystitis, where the muscular coat of the bladder is involved.

3. Peri-cystitis, para-cystitis, where the peritoneal surface or surrounding structures are inflamed.

This short section upon a surgical subject, only being granted a few pages in a medical work, cannot include a description of all these conditions, or more than a general outline of acute and chronic catarrhal cystitis. Suffice it to say for the other varieties that interstitial cystitis depends upon mucous cystitis or peri-cystitis, and is an inflammation of the muscular coat of the bladder, sometimes culminating in abscess, sometimes in concentric hypertrophy--i.e. contracture of the bladder. Peri-cystitis and para-cystitis occur in connection with peritonitis and pelvic cellulitis, and the peripheral inflammation may extend inward and involve the muscular and later the mucous coat.

{124} All these conditions are grave only in proportion to the intensity of the malady causing them and to which they are subordinate.

Gangrenous cystitis occurs after injury, and occasionally in profound septicæmic conditions (puerperal) or after intense cantharidal poisoning. It is fatal.

True diphtheria of the bladder occasionally, but very rarely, accompanies general diphtheritic conditions, and is a very grave malady. Membranous cystitis is less grave, may be partial or complete. I have a fibrinous cast of a female bladder which was extruded through the meatus. This malady occurs sometimes as a late complication of advanced chronic cystitis mucosa in the male. Recovery is quite possible.

Cystitis mucosa is a common disorder, constantly encountered by the physician as well as the surgeon. The irritable bladder, sometimes called cystitis, demands description here, as it may go on to become subacute or even acute cystitis of the vesical neck.

Irritability of the bladder is a neurotic and not an inflammatory condition, although it may lead to the latter state and terminate in it. The bladder is said to be irritable when the calls to urinate are too frequent, generally with little or no pain. As a rule, the urine is clear, containing no pus or a quantity entirely disproportionate to the frequency of the call to urinate.

In true irritability of the bladder the patient sleeps all night, although he may have to empty his bladder every hour or two by day. There is sometimes a sense of weight, heat, or throbbing, more or less intense, in the perineum; the desire to urinate is normal but imperious; the satisfaction after the act is complete, and no pain accompanies its performance.

This condition of things is generally either neurotic directly, or indirectly (reflex). In children it may be caused by a tight prepuce, especially if irritated by retained smegma, by teething, by the existence of intestinal worms; and it may accompany chorea. It gets well by lapse of time or is cured by removal of the cause. In the adult it is most common in young men and recent widowers, and is often an expression of sexual distress due to sexual stimulation without relief, to sexual excess, or to improper sexual hygiene. The irritation of acrid urine will also cause it, as well as such peripheral troubles as a narrow meatus urinarius, a tight prepuce, urethral stricture, moderately enlarged prostate, kidney irritation (stone in the kidney, etc.). It appears in old men, sometimes, apparently, as a forerunner of organic prostatic changes.

Such stimulation as a glass of wine or beer, pleasant company, absorbing occupation, may cause it to disappear temporarily. It is habitually better in dry, clear weather, and worse in damp seasons when the wind is east. Worry, anxiety, fatigue, depression of spirits, and similar causes aggravate the condition. It is better for the first twenty-four hours after sexual intercourse, and worse than it was before during the next following twenty-four hours.

The SYMPTOMS of pure irritability are simply a frequent desire to urinate during the waking hours, the act not being attended by pain and the urine being reasonably clear.

The PATHOLOGY of this affection is not definitely known. It seems {125} to be an essential neurosis involving the sensitive nerves of the deep urethra and neck of the bladder, attended, if long continued, by surface congestion of the deep urethra and neck of the bladder, and ultimately the phenomena of inflammation; for the very mechanical act of allowing the bladder incessantly to empty itself too often, and to squeeze its own neck, will, in many cases, after a time, lead to traumatic inflammation of mild type.

TREATMENT.--Marriage is a very effective treatment of pure vesical irritability when there is a sexual element in the case.

If any peripheral or local cause exists (stricture, contracted meatus, dense acid urine), its removal will effect a cure. Alkaline diluents, notably the citrate of potassium in gr. v-xxx doses, administered midway between meals, copaiba, or cubebs in moderate doses, often gives relief. Tonics, the tincture of the chloride of iron, and arsenical preparations are often of great value. The tincture of hyoscyamus in minim x-lx doses may be combined advantageously with any of these remedies.

One of the most efficient of all methods of treatment is the use of the conical steel sound, as large as the urethra will admit without violence. The sound should be warmed, lubricated, and gently carried into the bladder at intervals of two to four days. The daily passage of the sound is objectionable, even if it gives relief at first, for it is liable to kindle a slow inflammation in a urethra unaccustomed to its use. When a sound is inserted it should not be left an instant in the bladder, but should be gently withdrawn as soon as it has been fully inserted. If left in the urethra, it does no good, and may act upon the cut-off group of muscles in the membranous urethra, causing them to contract spasmodically, as in the physiological performance of the coup-de-piston after urination. Such contraction bruises the sensitive mucous membrane of the urethra against the hard sound, and does mechanical damage.

The sound acts in three ways: It (1) mechanically distends the irritable contracted cut-off muscle and seems to quiet its contractile tendency. It (2) squeezes all the blood from the passively congested vessels of the irritated mucous membrane, thus ensuring a new supply of blood to the part and an improved circulation in the reaction which follows the irritation. It (3) mechanically, by contact, blunts the sensibility of the terminal sensitive nerves in the mucous membrane of the deep urethra. In this way the sound acts, and its effects generally last several days, often a week. Its good effect is also instantaneous. The slight feeling of weight and discomfort in the perineum which the patient has before its use is gone instantly, and replaced by a feeling of comfort. When this immediate sense of relief is not experienced, it is doubtful whether such a case will yield to the simple treatment by sounding.

It is a mistake to suppose that any ointments smeared upon a sound do good in this condition. Mercurial, belladonna, and other ointments are used, but they are all and entirely rubbed off the sound before it reaches the deep urethra, and their good effect probably resides solely in the imagination of the physician and the credulity of the patient. Ointments are undoubtedly of service in some obstinate cases, notably strong tannic-acid mixtures, and sometimes iodoform, but these cannot be carried to the deep urethra by being rubbed upon a sound. The cupped sound may be used to effect this very neatly, the little cups on the sides of the {126} curve of the sound being filled with the ointment which it is proposed to carry down and apply to the affected spot. A few drops of a mild nitrate-of-silver injection also give decided good results in some cases. The solution should vary between two and ten grains in the ounce of water, and may be accurately applied by means of a Bigelow or an Ultzmann syringe, a few drops being thrown into the membranous urethra. After the application, which should be made only when the patient has a full bladder, urination will wash out the canal and good effects may be looked for--not immediately, as after sounding, but after the irritation produced by the stimulating application has subsided.

Acute Cystitis.

Acute cystitis sometimes involves only the neck of the bladder; in other cases the whole mucous lining of the bladder is included in the morbid process.

The causes of acute cystitis may be grouped under six heads:

1. Traumatic.--Under this head may be ranged all injuries from without, with or without fracture of the pelvic bones--wounds, rupture of the bladder, the pressure of the child's head during labor; injuries from within, as during the use of instruments, by stone, or pedunculated tumor. The list may be increased by such chemical traumatisms as those produced by ammoniacal urine in cases of atony or paralysis, by excessively acid urine in neurotic conditions of the neck of the bladder. Such chemical causes, it will be observed, commonly act in conjunction with another cause. Irritating injections without any co-operative cause are capable of lighting up acute cystitis.

2. Extension of neighboring inflammation--gonorrhoeal cystitis and that attending prostatic inflammation, pelvic abscess, pelvic cellulitis, peritonitis from neoplasms growing at the vesical neck, tubercle, cancer, etc.

3. Medicinal--from cantharides, sometimes cubebs or turpentine.

4. Specific--in diphtheritic, puerperal, septicæmic conditions.

5. The influence of cold when chronic inflammation already exists.

6. Neurotic--actual, from extreme and long-continued neuralgia of the vesical neck; reflex, from irritation at a distance, tight meatus, stricture, inflammation of the seminal vesicles, kidney irritations.

SYMPTOMS.--The symptoms of acute cystitis are (1) frequent painful urination by night as well as by day, the pain being greatest at the close of, and immediately after, the act, and the pain persisting more or less between the acts, radiating from the perineum; (2) moderate fever, sometimes announced by chill; (3) commonly great despondency and a depression of spirits totally disproportionate to the degree and significance of the local inflammation; (4) the urine invariably is milky, with pus: it may at first be acid and of normal odor; it is often tinged with blood, especially toward the end of the act of urination. In extreme cases the urine may contain membranous or sloughy shreds or gangrenous gases. The urine eventually becomes alkaline, and finally deposits lumps of pus and abundant triple phosphate crystals.

Complications occurring with the cystitis yield appropriate symptoms. {127} Such possible complications are congestion and engorgement of the prostate, possibly going on to abscess; epididymitis, orchitis, inflammation of the seminal vesicles, inflammation running up the ureters, pyelitis, surgical kidney; abscess in the walls of the bladder or in the connective tissue about the same; very rarely peritonitis or suppurative phlebitis in the veins about the neck of the bladder.

The pathological changes produced by acute cystitis are similar to analogous changes upon the other mucous membranes: patches of more or less brilliant uniform or punctate redness, perhaps surrounding small ecchymotic areas; a softened, swollen mucous membrane; enlarged follicles near the neck of the bladder, perhaps ulcerated spots; possibly false or true diphtheritic exudations (such exudations have been especially noted in cantharidal cystitis); possibly interstitial abscess of the bladder-wall, or even suppurative phlebitis in the veins about the prostate and neck of the bladder, as observed by Walsham[1] in a case of cystitis due to over-distension. This last complication is happily exceptionally rare.

[Footnote 1: London Lancet, May 10, 1879, p. 665.]

The PROGNOSIS varies with the cause of the cystitis, and as the latter often cannot be entirely removed, the acute cystitis may only be moderated so as to be made to assume the chronic form. When the cause can be entirely removed, acute cystitis gets well and leaves the bladder absolutely sound.

TREATMENT.--Acute cystitis from whatever cause requires a uniform general line of treatment. Anodynes are essential both for the patient's comfort and to prevent the constant straining to empty the bladder to which the unremitting, painful desire to urinate impels him. Hyoscyamus is a favorite in the form of tincture in minim xx-drachm j doses, or any of the opiates by the mouth, or in suppository preferably combined with extract of belladonna in small dose. Sometimes quarter- or half-grain suppositories of extract of belladonna alone at intervals of six to eight hours keep the tenesmus more in check than anything else, but belladonna used too freely may bring on retention by causing spasm of the cut-off muscles. Camphor is useful, especially in strangury from cantharides. Rest in bed is essential in most cases, preferably with the hips raised. Heat in some form, as a hot poultice, fomentation, spongio-piline, hot-water rubber bottle, etc. over the hypogastrium preceded by a mustard plaster, gives great comfort. Hot-water hip-baths of short duration and frequently repeated are of service in most cases.

Alkalies are valuable, especially in the beginning of an attack--liq. potassæ minim v-xx doses, citrate of potassium gr. x-xx, combined with an anodyne or some demulcent drink.

Infusions and extracts of corn-silk, dog-grass root, buchu, pareira brava, uva ursi, etc. are of some assistance, but generally not so comforting as some of the bland diuretic waters--Bethesda, Mountain Valley, Poland, Glenn, Vichy, Wildungen, Buffalo Lithia. Distilled water or rain-water, especially if taken warm, is a good diluent diuretic. On the advent of acute cystitis all instrumentation upon the bladder should, if practicable, be postponed, all stimulating drugs (cantharides, turpentine, cubebs, alcohol) stopped, and stimulating foods avoided. Asparagus, coffee, salt, pepper, mustard, acids, and a highly nitrogenized diet are not allowable. The rectum should be kept empty and complications treated as they arise.

{128} Chronic Cystitis (Catarrh of the Bladder).

Catarrh of the bladder is chronic inflammation of the mucous membrane of the urinary reservoir, with more or less thickening of the walls of the bladder. This malady, so apt to persist for years, is probably more commonly encountered by the physician than acute cystitis. Acute cystitis, however, frequently complicates the chronic malady by occasional outbursts of acute symptoms. Thus an attack of the stone is acute calculous cystitis interrupting the course of chronic vesical inflammation due to stone. Catarrh of the bladder may follow acute cystitis, or it may commence insidiously as a subacute disorder, and be catarrh, in the popular sense, from the first.

The causes of catarrh of the bladder are never single. It always takes two causes to produce true catarrh of the bladder--one mechanical, and one chemical. After a traumatism inflicted on a healthy bladder, with proper care the patient recovers entirely. If, however, he insists upon keeping up and about, continues to drink liquor, and does not avoid straining at urination, the membrane about the neck of the bladder, irritated by the ammonia from the decomposing urine, secretes an excess of viscid mucus, the pus becomes gelatinized by the ammonia, the constant straining leads to hypertrophy of the muscular coat, the nerves lose their acute sensitiveness, and the milder persistent malady, chronic catarrh, is set up, to continue perhaps for an indefinite period.

Infiltrations of the bladder-walls with tubercle or cancer, urinary calculus, and, notably, enlarged prostate, stricture of the urethra, tumors of the bladder, hernia of the bladder, exstrophy, over-distension of the bladder from stricture, spasm of the urethra, coma, paralysis, or other cause, may be the traumatic element, while the liberated ammonia from the alkaline decomposing urine furnishes the chemical element; and the two causes, if continued, occasion and maintain the condition known as chronic catarrh of the bladder. In coma or the delirium of typhoid fever or paraplegia or hemiplegia (sometimes) the bladder becomes over-distended and atonied, perhaps paralyzed. Here the use of the catheter appropriately, with great gentleness, may relieve the patient without even the intervention of acute cystitis; while, on the other hand, acute cystitis may come on and be cured, or, if ammoniacal urine be allowed to accumulate and the bladder be not washed out so long as it is unable to entirely expel its contents, chronic cystitis, catarrh, results. I have known several cases of partial paraplegia and other disorders in which the patient could void no drop of urine except through a catheter, where there never had been any chronic catarrh, no stringy mucus, hardly a pus-corpuscle, through long years of the disability, owing to intelligence in the attention to emptying and washing out the bladder instituted by the physician having first charge of the case.

As prominent among the causes of chronic catarrh in a purely medical aspect it may be well to insist upon the ease with which this condition is sometimes brought about by the physician himself. A man with a weakened bladder may carry a pint or much more clear urine in his bladder constantly during many years as a residual deposit which his weakened bladder cannot throw off. Excess over the fixed residuum produces a desire to urinate, and the patient, mainly by voluntary contraction of the {129} abdominal walls, voids that excess. If now the physician finds this globular accumulation in the patient's belly, and in his zeal to do all that is possible forgets his caution, he may throw the patient first into an acute cystitis (if haply he escapes collapse), and then into chronic vesical catarrh--an affair perhaps of a lifetime. Surgeons have noticed, and especially Sir Henry Thompson has pointed out, that a dirty catheter may poison the urine and bring about a cystitis which otherwise might have been avoided; and observers from all time have noticed that the sudden entire evacuation of the contents of a bladder long accustomed to over-distension is in itself a grave cause of serious inflammatory disturbance to the mucous membrane of the bladder. Recently much attention has been called to this condition and its possible fatal termination by Sir Andrew Clarke, under the name of catheter fever.

The deductions from a knowledge of these facts are obvious: they are--(1) always to thoroughly cleanse, and then to disinfect, a catheter on each occasion before its use; and (2) never to empty entirely at a first sitting a bladder which has been long habituated to over-distension; and when, finally, the bladder is emptied, always irrigate it with a disinfecting solution (borax) after each emptying.

SYMPTOMS.--Chronic cystitis varies in grade, and its symptoms vary with the grade of the inflammatory process. There is probably no pain more intense than that endured by a man with severe general cystitis in its last stages, when the unceasing tenesmus wrings groans from his lips, the sweat from his body, doubles his frame in agony, and converts his facial expression into a distorted tragedy. The sight is pitiable and never to be forgotten. On the other hand, a man may continue about and at his work with a patient flabby bladder containing constantly more or less stringy mucus and ammoniacal urine, suffering little or no pain or tenesmus, and perhaps having no subjective symptoms except a slight sense of weight in his lower belly and a rather frequent desire to urinate.

Between these limits the symptoms range, but in a general way it may be said that the symptoms of chronic vesical catarrh are these: frequent calls to urinate, attended by more or less pain, especially toward and after the termination of the act. The sense of satisfaction normally felt after urination is generally absent. Motion, particularly jolting as in rough riding, causes pain. This pain is referred to the lower part of the belly, to the perineum, to the end of the penis, the urethra, the anus. The straining after urination may be absent or of the most intense character, leading to prolapse of the rectum and causing excruciating torture. The urine always contains pus scattered through it, and generally also more or less pus in that semi-solid condition known as stringy mucus. Stringy mucus is pus gelatinized by the ammonia of the decomposing urine. These clots of muco-pus contain gritty crystals of the ammonio-magnesian phosphate. More or less blood is to be found in the urine, especially during acute paroxysms. Pure blood sometimes follows the urine after each act of urination. Bacteria abound in the fluid, which varies in odor greatly in different cases, not always strictly in accordance with the severity of the actual inflammatory process. Thus, the urine may be simply sweetish in its odor, ammoniacal, flat, and stale, or be possessed of a putrid, sickening sweetness of indescribably nauseating power. Again, it may be rankly rotten. The bottom of the chamber in some cases becomes {130} covered with a thick coating of the viscid muco-pus, which strings out and reluctantly follows the fluid when the vessel is inverted. Sometimes the urine contains shreds of false membrane or putrid masses of sloughy tissue.

PATHOLOGY.--In chronic cystitis the mucous membrane of the bladder undergoes gradual thickening, loses its pink salmon tint, and becomes gray in color. The thickening extends to the submucous layer, and more or less to the muscular walls as well. In cases of prolonged chronic cystitis attending atony of the bladder, notably with hypertrophied prostate, the cavity of the organ is large, its walls seemingly thinned and flabby, its internal coat roughened by the crossing of bundles of muscular fibres or perhaps perfectly smooth. In other conditions (concentric hypertrophy), where there has been a serious obstacle to the free outflow of urine without any atony of the muscular coat (stricture of the urethra, some cases of stone and of enlarged prostate), the walls of the bladder may be enormously thickened to the extent of an inch or more, the inside surface rough, perhaps ulcerated.

The thickening of the muscular bands within the bladder often causes them to stand out in bold relief, like the muscular bundles in the heart-cavity. These prominent bundles enclose spaces of various sizes and shapes, and from the bottoms of these spaces sometimes the mucous membrane protrudes between the muscular bands and forms pouches of varying size (sacculated bladder). These pouches consist of mucous membrane alone covered with peritoneum, and may become the seat of encysted stone.

If there has been a subacute grade of the surface inflammation before death, there may be livid spots on the mucous surface of the bladder, punctate or larger ecchymoses, reddened areas from which the epithelium is more or less detached, ulcers with or without sloughs or diphtheritic covering, perhaps perforations of the bladder and infiltration of urine, enlarged mucous follicles, granulations, fungosities, etc. Heterologous deposits, tumor, cancerous and tubercular ulcers, cysts, stone, complete the possibilities of what may be encountered in the bladder at an autopsy upon a patient with chronic cystitis.

The chronic like the acute varieties of cystitis may involve the whole of the inside of the bladder or only a portion of it.

The PROGNOSIS, like that of acute cystitis, varies mainly with the cause. If the latter can be entirely removed (stone), the bladder gets perfectly well. Not so, however, unless all the causes are removed. Thus, a phosphatic stone may grow in a bladder as a result of enlarged prostate and chronic cystitis. The presence of the stone excites the chronic cystitis, and subjects the patient to a crisis of acute cystitis from time to time. The removal of such a stone will by no means cure the chronic cystitis; its removal is only one step in the treatment of the cystitis.

As far as life is concerned, the prognosis of chronic cystitis is good. A patient may live many years with chronic cystitis, particularly if he treats his bladder properly. Although, as generally encountered, chronic cystitis is not curable, few maladies yield results to treatment more gratifying to the physician and the patient than the one under consideration.

The legitimate ultimate termination of chronic cystitis is by chronic {131} inflammation of the ureter and pelvis of the kidney on both sides, interstitial kidney changes, and finally death by suppression. Generally, this end may be almost indefinitely postponed by well-directed efforts of palliative treatment.

TREATMENT.--The acute outbursts of inflammatory disturbance occurring during the course of chronic cystitis require the same means for their relief as those already indicated when considering the treatment of acute cystitis--all the prohibition of stimulants, the use of bland mineral waters, demulcent decoctions, infusions, and alkaline draughts. The anodynes, the rest, the heat, the hip-bath, are all indicated here for the acuter symptoms, just as they are in the acute malady, but very much more can be done both in a prophylactic and in a curative way. A milk diet, even an exclusive milk diet, is an element of great value in cases of chronic cystitis. I have two patients, both old men, now under observation, one of whom recovered entirely from cystitis with complete atony, necessitating the constant use of the catheter, by means of an exclusive milk diet. He takes one gallon of milk a day, and nothing else, and lives among his fellow-men at his work and amusements in entire contentment. He has remained absolutely well on this diet during many years. The other patient could not take milk after fair trial, but gradually emerged from the very jaws of death, due to prolonged chronic cystitis and double pyelitis, by the free use of koumiss, which his wife daily prepared for him. Vichy and milk in equal parts, taken cold, is another form of using the milk diet, and the more modern peptonized milk another.

Light white and red wines, or even a little gin or old brandy, are of decided advantage in the majority of enfeebled old men with chronic cystitis. The patient should be clothed with the utmost care. The feet and legs should be clad in wool unless in the very hottest season, and flannel should constantly encase the belly and loins. Nothing is more detrimental to chronic cystitis than chilling the legs.

Another word is necessary in favor of the internal use of alkaline remedies. Even where the urine is alkaline, ammoniacal, putrid, if the stomach will take an alkaline medicine kindly the effect is generally beneficial, for the urine, especially in old men who are prone to these maladies, is quite certain to be acid at the fountain-head. And even if the urine is immediately altered by chronic pyelitis through ammoniacal decomposition before it enters the ureter, yet it will generally irritate the pelvis of the kidney and the ureter and the bladder less if it be secreted in a bland alkaline state than if it be discharged into the irritated area full of uric acid.

Turpentine, copaiba, cubebs, and the muriate of iron are of service in selected cases, but ordinary astringents seem to possess little or no value. Benzoic acid, in ten-grain doses in capsules, sometimes improves the ammoniacal condition of the urine, but the stomach often rejects it. Boracic acid, which has of late been much talked about, in five- to ten-grain doses in water, three or four times a day, is of value occasionally. Quinine is serviceable where the nerve-force is failing. I have been unable to procure any very decided advantage from the use of salicylic acid or the salicylate of sodium by the mouth.

The most important general surgical principle in connection with {132} chronic vesical catarrh is that which concerns emptying the bladder thoroughly and ensuring its cleanliness. In many, perhaps most, conditions of chronic inflammation of the bladder from atony, paralysis, obstruction, or other cause the bladder fails to empty itself entirely. There remains, therefore, a fixed residuum always in the bladder; and although this is diluted and partly evacuated at each act of urination, yet some of the pus, the bacteria, the ammoniacal ferment, remains constantly in the bladder ready to contaminate each new portion of urine as it descends from the kidneys. This must be disposed of, and the bladder washed out, if a permanently satisfactory treatment is to be instituted.

The soft-rubber catheter is to be preferred where it will pass, otherwise the woven silk or the French Mercier instrument, and the bladder should receive attention at least once in the twenty-four hours, and oftener if required. The last drops of urine should be drawn off and the bladder washed with water at about 100° F., in which is dissolved some borax--a heaping teaspoonful to the pint--or other substance capable of disinfecting the contents or mildly stimulating the circulation of the bladder.

Carbolic acid has not yielded good results in my hands. A host of remedies have been employed, but it is doubtful whether anything can do more good than the water mechanically, borax as a disinfectant, dilute nitric acid, minim i-x to the pint, as a stimulant, or, in some cases, nitrate of silver, gr. ½-x to the ounce, used with caution. The injections should be practised through the catheter which withdraws the urine, and repeated according to their effect. For cleansing purposes an injection of simple warm water may be used at each introduction of the catheter. A fountain syringe with two-way stopcock is the most convenient instrument to use for the purpose of simply washing the bladder, because the wash may be repeated indefinitely until it returns clear, without readjusting the nozzle in the catheter.

Very extreme, long-protracted cases of chronic vesical catarrh justify the performance of lateral cystotomy for their relief, or the modification quite recently proposed by Thompson[2]--a median perineal incision involving only the membranous urethra, through which a large soft-rubber catheter is passed and tied in for a few days or longer.

[Footnote 2: Brit. Med. Journ., Dec. 9, 1882, p. 1131.]

Neurosis of the Bladder.

The most common vesical neurosis is neuralgia of the neck of the bladder, with or without the accompaniment of irritability of the bladder, spasmodic stricture, or vesical spasm. Irritability of the bladder has been already considered at the beginning of the section on Cystitis. The other neurotic conditions are always more or less interwoven with each other, and they may each and all of them complicate inflammatory states of the deep urethra, prostate, and vesical neck.

The CAUSES of this set of affections are most varied, and range from irregular sexual hygiene (the most common of all) through inflammatory local conditions, peripheral irritations (the most obstinate of which is {133} chronic inflammation of the seminal vesicles, with or without true spermatorrhoea), up to organic changes in the spinal cord and brain.

The PROGNOSIS in neurotic states varies with the cause. Some cases are easily controlled; others absolutely defy all and every treatment of which I have any knowledge.

The TREATMENT involves a removal, if possible, of the cause. Local measures which have been found most effective in subduing the deep urethral irritation are--(1) the gentle passage of a soft bougie or conical steel sound into the bladder at intervals of one to seven days. The instrument should be removed at once. Sometimes it is necessary to cut a narrow meatus or a stricture in the pendulous urethra in order that a sound of large-enough size may be employed to put the sensitive deep urethra sufficiently on the stretch. (2) The application to the deep urethra and prostatic sinus of pastes of tannin or iodoform with the cupped sound or other apparatus, or the injection of the deep urethra with strong solutions of tannin or mild solutions (gr. i-x to ounce j) of nitrate of silver. (3) In the most extreme cases, those furnishing all the symptoms of stone, even cystotomy is justifiable. It nearly always furnishes a temporary, sometimes permanent, relief.

Medical measures include all the bland diluent mineral waters, alkaline and tonic remedies, already considered in discussing Irritability of the Bladder.

Atony and Paralysis.

Atony of the bladder is more or less lack of expulsive force, due to failure in power of the muscles of the bladder, the nerves remaining sound. Paralysis is the same condition perhaps more pronounced, but due to central origin. A patient may be unable to pass water in more than a dribbling stream, but if he has true organic stricture or spasm of the deep urethra, the muscular coat of his bladder may perhaps not be to blame for his imperfect urination. The question of atony may be decided in such a case by introducing a catheter of any size that will pass. If there is atony, the stream flows sluggishly from the mouth of the catheter, and toward the end is influenced by the breathing of the patient. If there is no atony, the stream rushes through the catheter, and maintains its force until the last drop flows away. In paralysis and extreme atony the influence of the descent of the diaphragm during inspiration is noticed during the whole course of the flow of the sluggish stream through the catheter.

The CAUSES of atony are over-distension of the bladder, voluntary (by persistently neglecting the call to urinate), involuntary retention (from fever, coma, stricture, large prostate), and a certain intrinsic, sometimes inherited, tendency to weakness on the part of the bladder, noticed by some people during their entire lives.

Atony is most common, often a part of their malady, in old men with enlarged prostate. Paralysis of the bladder accompanies certain organic changes due to injury or disease in the spinal cord or brain. Both in atony and in paralysis the bladder may be constantly distended to a certain extent, perhaps to its utmost limit, as a passive sac, and the excess of urine over this uniform residuum may dribble away involuntarily {134} (false incontinence), or may be expelled in small portions by repeated acts of urination performed in the ordinary way or by the aid of great straining and assistance from the voluntary contractions of the muscular walls of the abdomen. No condition of incontinence of urine can be considered proved until demonstrated by the passage of a catheter. Both atony and paralysis may get well under proper treatment in favorable cases. Many cases are incurable, but the discomfort they tend to cause may be almost entirely counteracted.

TREATMENT.--Under all circumstances where the bladder cannot empty itself, the catheter should be used, and the bladder should be washed out, kept clean, and disinfected. All the suggestions laid down for catheterization and vesical injection in the section on Chronic Cystitis are applicable here and need not be repeated. It is particularly necessary to disinfect the catheter on each occasion before it is introduced. This is best effected by washing the catheter outside and inside with a 5 per cent. solution of carbolic acid in water, and finally washing it outside with clean water, before its introduction. If the bladder is over-distended, it should not, as a rule, be entirely emptied at the first introduction of the catheter, for fear of possible collapse, or, what is more to be dreaded, setting up acute cystitis by suddenly taking off all the internal pressure from the vessels in the walls of the weakened bladder, to which pressure the circulation has become accustomed. If, therefore, the bladder is emptied inadvertently, it is better to inject a few ounces of warm water containing borax in solution (a teaspoonful to the pint), and leave it in until the next catheterization. The quantity left in may be reduced at each sitting. By careful attention to these means most cases of over-distension due to atony or paralysis may be relieved without the intervention of cystitis, or with so little that it does not become a serious factor in the case.

The medical treatment of these cases is less important than the mechanical. Under the latter alone and improvement in general health curable cases often get well. Milk diet is of service, and iron and tonics of considerable value in proper cases. Electricity has not yielded satisfactory results in my hands, and I have not derived the advantage from ergot which is often claimed for it. In cases of atony I think I have seen good results sometimes follow the use of strychnine internally in pretty full doses. The same remedy under the skin acts more promptly and more effectively if it is to do any good at all. In true paralysis of central origin the cure of the bladder depends upon relief of the original disease and local treatment to the bladder.

Hysterical women sometimes feign paralysis in order apparently to secure the sympathy and personal attention of the physician. The application of the actual cautery above the pubes, and entrusting a female nurse with the function of catheterization, is generally effective treatment in these cases.

Hemorrhage from the Bladder.

After all sorts of wounds and injuries to the bladder, and in cases of rupture of the viscus, blood is found in the urine. In certain medical {135} conditions, in scurvy, hemorrhagic eruptive diseases, cases of vicarious menstruation, it has been noticed. In strangury due to cantharides, or in any condition of acute or chronic cystitis with considerable spasm of the bladder, the urine contains more or less blood. Especially is this true if ulceration exist at or near the neck of the bladder, as in tubercular or cancerous cystitis.

In cases of stone in the bladder one of the cardinal symptoms is vesical hæmaturia, while in villous growth often the only symptom of the malady is repeated attacks of more or less profuse bleeding from the bladder coming on unexpectedly, without obvious exciting cause, and showing no regularity in the length of the intervals between the hemorrhages or the intensity or duration of the latter. Outbursts of unexpected hemorrhage are not uncommon in connection with some cases of enlarged prostate and chronic cystitis, while these outbursts are the rule, sooner or later, in most cases of true cancer of the bladder.

The DIAGNOSIS is often very important--that is, in a given case to decide whether the blood comes from the bladder or from the kidney. This may usually be ascertained by a very simple manoeuvre, especially when the flow of blood is not excessive: a silver catheter of short curve is introduced and the urine drawn off, the bladder gently washed several times without moving the catheter, and the shade of red in the wash noted. Now, the bladder being slightly distended with warm water, the point of the catheter is moved somewhat roughly in all directions and made to touch different portions of the wall of the bladder. The water is now allowed to escape, and its deepened color will decide that the hemorrhage has a vesical origin, for manipulations of a silver catheter in a healthy bladder will not occasion a flow of blood. In doubtful cases on two occasions I succeeded in locating the point whence the blood escaped as follows: In one I passed a soft catheter, and washed the bladder until the wash escaped nearly clean; I then withdrew the catheter until the point reached the membranous urethra (the bladder having been left full of clean water), and immediately passed the instrument again and withdrew the contents of the bladder, which were now brilliantly colored, thus locating the bleeding point in the prostatic sinus. In the other case, that of a young man with moderate stricture, whose urine was nearly solid with blood, I noticed that no blood escaped by the meatus between the acts of urination; therefore the bleeding point was posterior to the membranous urethra. Was it in the prostate, the bladder, or the kidney? To decide this I passed a soft catheter and washed the bladder until the wash flowed clear. I then injected some warm water, withdrew the catheter, and caused the patient to empty the bladder. The flow was brilliant with blood. In both these cases I effected a cure by one application of solid nitrate of silver through the urethra to the prostatic sinus.

The TREATMENT of vesical hæmaturia is the treatment of the cause, which, if possible, must be ascertained. For the symptom itself the internal use of iron, turpentine, opium, gallic and tannic acids, are of service. I have not derived any advantage from ergot. Locally, rest in bed, ice over the region of the bladder, and avoidance of straining at urination are generally all that is necessary. I have had good results from injecting the bladder with a solution of alum, gr. i-ij to ounce j of warm {136} water, and cures have been effected by injecting nitrate of silver in solution. It is not well to inject iron in solution, since this substance makes a hard clot, and a soft clot is preferable. When the bladder fills up with a solid clot of blood, the best treatment, according to my experience, is to administer opium freely and diluent drinks. The urine slowly dissolves the clot, which has already arrested the hemorrhage, in most cases by its pressure, and the blood flows away as a dark coffee-ground material, sometimes nearly black. If the catheter is used, the clot broken up or dissolved with pepsin or other substance, and washed or pumped out, a new clot is apt to form at once; and although this treatment is based on high authority, and is often practised successfully, it is a question whether the patient would not in many cases do as well, or better, by being let alone, soothed by opium, until the urine dissolves the clot and nature relieves him.

New Growths in the Bladder.

These belong strictly to the province of surgery, but they fall also under the notice of the physician. Tubercular disease may involve the whole mucous surface or only the neck of the bladder; cancer may infiltrate its walls or grow out as a solid tumor in the vesical cavity; fibrous, sarcomatous, and myomatous new formations, polypi, and cysts, simple and hydatid, have been encountered; villous growths, both benign and cancerous, may occur. These morbid deposits give rise either to recurrent hemorrhage or to varying grades of chronic cystitis. The diagnosis is often difficult, the treatment generally palliative. Much has been done of late in an operative way for the relief of tumors of the bladder, and some brilliant results have been secured by operations through the perineum as well as above the pubes. A tumor of moderate size may be detected by the searcher within the bladder, and often may be grasped in a lithotrite and measured. Such a tumor can generally be plainly felt by conjoined palpation in a thin subject, one hand pressed firmly down behind the pubes and two fingers of the other hand passed into the rectum. Recently, Sir Henry Thompson has advocated vesical exploration for purposes of diagnosis through a median incision in the perineum, as for median lithotomy, and has practised it a number of times with a large measure of success. I have made the same exploration several times, and have encountered and successfully removed one tumor. The expedient is worth bearing in mind for use in any obscure cases. It is probably less objectionable and more likely to yield valuable information than the exploration by introducing the whole hand into the rectum (Simon's method).

{137}

SEMINAL INCONTINENCE.

BY SAMUEL W. GROSS, A.M., M.D.

DEFINITION.--By the term seminal incontinence, which is synonymous with involuntary or abnormal seminal emissions, pollutions, and spermatorrhoea, is meant the involuntary discharge of semen beyond the limits of health. Although usually described as a distinct disease, it is symptomatic of, and, as a rule, primarily dependent upon, weakness or exhaustion, along with exaggerated irritability, excitability, impressibility, or mobility of the centres which preside over erection and ejaculation. Hence it should be regarded as a motor neurosis, and not as a functional disorder of the testes.

CLASSIFICATION.--Involuntary seminal losses embrace three conditions, which constitute as many varieties of the affection, and which may exist separately, or pass into one another, or be combined. These varieties are, first, nocturnal losses or pollutions, which occur during sleep, and are generally attended with an erection, erotic dream, and pleasurable sensation; secondly, diurnal pollutions, which take place when the patient is awake, are excited by trivial mechanical or psychical causes, and are associated with imperfect erection and diminished sensation; and, thirdly, spermorrhagia, or spermatorrhoea, in the strict acceptation of that term, which is characterized by a constant escape of a slight amount of seminal fluid, without the orgasm, pleasurable sensation, or impure thoughts, or during micturition and defecation.

1. Nocturnal Pollutions.--By far the most common of the varieties of seminal incontinence is the first, or that in which the emissions occur during sleep under the influence of an erotic dream, and which may, therefore, be regarded as an exaggeration of the normal or physiological condition. In health, provided the subject leads a continent life, the number of emissions varies greatly, and as they are merely reflex signs of distension of the seminal passages, they are not pathological nor are they attended with ill effects. The knowledge of this fact is of great practical importance, as it frequently enables the physician to assure his patient that the emissions are not abnormal, thereby relieving his mind of a great weight. It is, of course, to be remembered that the frequency of nocturnal pollutions depends upon age, climate, habits, temperament, constitution, diet, and predisposition, and that young men who suffered during childhood from nocturnal incontinence of urine are particularly obnoxious to them. Their frequency also varies greatly in the same person, and it is scarcely possible to determine what constitutes the standard {138} of health merely by the intervals of their repetition, since a number which would be normal in one person would be abnormal in another. In men, however, who possess sound nervous systems and who do not trouble themselves with sexual matters an emission every fortnight is a sign of excellent health; and even if they should occur at intervals of several days, they are not inconsistent with temporary good health. The latter statement is well exemplified by a case which came under my observation in 1882. A druggist, twenty-seven years of age, had had for six years from three to live emissions a week, and occasionally two during a single night, attended with erections and voluptuous dreams, without the slightest evidence of impairment of his health. In all such cases, however, as well as in those in which the emissions have occurred at longer intervals for a number of years, it only requires a little longer time for general symptoms to manifest themselves.

Nocturnal pollutions are to be regarded as pathological when they occur in married or single men who indulge in regular intercourse; when they are followed by backache, headache, enfeeblement of the functional powers of the brain, mental depression, and bodily or mental lassitude; when they take place without erections or dreams; when they accompany or follow acute or chronic diseases; when they coexist with diurnal pollutions or spermorrhagia; and, finally, when they are complicated by one of the varieties of impotence, which may be the only indication that the emissions are abnormal or one of the effects of impairment of the functions of the genital nervous centres. The associated symptoms of myelasthenia and cerebrasthenia vary very much in degree in men of apparently the same amount of vigor and tolerance, and in whom the pollutions occur with equal frequency, or they may even be absent altogether.

2. Diurnal Pollutions.--Ejaculation of semen during the day is fortunately of comparatively infrequent occurrence, since it indicates a more serious condition than do losses of seminal fluid occurring when the patient is asleep, the genital organs and the centres which preside over them being highly impressible or in a state of irritable weakness. In what may be regarded as the lesser form of the affection the ejaculation is due to slight peripheral irritation, induced, for example, by friction of the clothing, crossing of the legs repeated several times, horseback exercise, driving over rough streets, riding in railway-cars, or even shaving, combing the hair, or shampooing the head; while in the more aggravated variety an emission is induced by psychical irritation, such as reading libidinous books, the sight of indecent pictures, dwelling upon sexual ideas, or the mere sight of a female. In the former of these varieties there is a fair erection, but the sensibility is blunted; in the latter the erection is flabby or the penis is flaccid and there is little if any pleasure.

3. Spermorrhagia.--In the third phase of the affection, which is still more uncommon than the second variety, there is a continuous passive loss of semen, without erection or sensation--a condition which depends upon paralysis and dilatation of the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts, and which is most conspicuous during the acts of micturition and defecation. The existence of spermatorrhoea, in the restricted sense of the term, is denied by some authors, but I have myself met with it in five instances, and typical cases have been recorded by other modern writers.

CLINICAL HISTORY.--Seminal incontinence usually supervenes upon {139} the interruption of sexual intercourse, especially when the subject has been accustomed to excessive venereal indulgence, or, as more frequently happens, upon the abandonment of the habit of masturbation. Any one of these varieties may exist separately, but they gradually pass into each other, and are variously intermixed in the advanced grade of the affection. In the mild type there is increased frequency in the occurrence of nocturnal pollutions, ejaculation taking place at intervals of several days or for two or three nights in succession, when there is a respite for a week or ten days. The emissions are associated with disturbances of the nervous system, referable to the brain or spinal cord or to the cerebro-spinal axis, of which mental lassitude and muscular debility are the most common signs. When, as the result of the increase in the irritability of the ejaculatory centre and of the progressive weakness or exhaustion of the entire nervous system, the case goes on from bad to worse, it usually pursues the following course: Abnormal frequency of the nocturnal pollutions is associated with pain in the back, headache, muscular fatigue, and incapacity for sustained mental effort. With the increase in the number of the emissions erection becomes imperfect, ejaculation on coition is frequently precipitate, and the patient complains of dulness of perception, impairment of memory, mental dejection, a dull pain in the occipital region, weakness of vision, vertigo, palpitation of the heart, trembling and numbness of the limbs, shortness of the breath, flatulence, constipation, and other signs of gastric derangement. Diurnal pollutions are now superadded, and intercourse is impracticable, either from failure of erection or from premature ejaculation. The general symptoms, too, are more serious. The patient constantly broods over his condition, assumes that he has permanently lost his virility, and the mental anxiety and dejection verge upon or merge into a condition of sexual hypochondrism. The gait is unsteady; the hands and feet are habitually cold; he is subject to wandering neuralgic and rheumatoid pains; passes restless nights; loses flesh and color; shuns society; imagines that every one recognizes his condition, and fears to look one in the face; and is utterly incapacitated for mental or physical exertion. With the still further increase of the irritable weakness of the genitalia and nervous centres the semen flows continuously out of the urethra, and its discharge is augmented during defecation and micturition. Finally, the man becomes a confirmed hypochondriac, and should he have inherited a tendency to insanity, epilepsy, ataxia, or other nervous disorders, he may lapse into one of these conditions.

In the early stage of seminal incontinence, when the nocturnal pollutions overstep the natural limits, the ejaculated fluid is unchanged. When, however, the pollutions are more frequent and diurnal discharges coexist, the semen is watery and scanty; the spermatozoids are smaller, comparatively few in number, and their movements are liable to be abolished in less than an hour, while spermatic crystals form more rapidly and more abundantly than in health. In the worst cases, or those characterized by diurnal and nocturnal pollutions and by the presence of semen in the urine, the spermatozoids are either entirely absent, or, if they are present, they are motionless, stunted, or variously deformed. In these advanced cases the ejaculated fluid, which consists principally of the secretions of the seminal vesicles and the prostate, frequently undergoes fatty {140} degeneration, as indicated by granular epithelium, by molecular detritus, and even by oil-globules in the protoplasm of the altered zoosperms. The entire absence of spermatozoids, constituting the condition known as azoospermatorrhoea, is of infrequent occurrence.

An examination of the genital organs discloses elongation of the prepuce in nearly one-fourth of all cases; a rigid and pointed penis in one-tenth; relaxation of the scrotum in about one-eighth; irritable testes in 1 example out of every 25; varicocele in 1 case out of every 50; coldness of the genitalia in 1 case out of every 17; a feeling of heat in 1 case out of every 33; and irritability of the bladder in 1 case out of every 25. It will, moreover, be found that seminal incontinence is complicated by feebleness of erection, with precipitate ejaculation on coition, in 22 per cent. of all cases; by the occurrence of ejaculation on attempting intercourse, before penetration, simultaneously with erection, or even before erection, in 16 per cent.; and with total impotence in 5 per cent. of all cases. Prostatorrhoea is also a not infrequent complication, while urethral strictures and hyperæsthesia are nearly always present.

ETIOLOGY AND PATHOGENY.--Seminal incontinence is not a separate entity, but one of many symptoms of general or local disorders, or of both combined. In the majority of instances it must be looked upon as a neurosis, diurnal and nocturnal pollutions representing a motor neurosis with spasm of the seminal vesicles, and spermorrhagia indicating a motor neurosis with dilatation and paresis of the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts. In all of the varieties there is increased susceptibility of the cerebral and spinal genital centres to factors which in healthy persons are not productive of ill effects.

Like other nervous disorders, involuntary seminal emissions sometimes manifest themselves in several members of the same family through several generations, being the result of inherited predisposition. In this class of cases the subjects are of a nervous, excitable, or irritable temperament, somewhat anæmic, and possibly suffered during infancy from nocturnal enuresis. Among the predisposing causes the most common is indulgence in erotic fancies, which terminates in increased reflex impressibility of the centres which preside over the genital organs.

The affection is, however, usually acquired, being met with particularly in single subjects toward the termination of the second decade and between the second and third decades. Of these cases, at least nine-tenths can be traced to masturbation, while the remainder will be found to have had gonorrhoea or to have masturbated, suffered from gonorrhoea, or indulged their sexual propensities in various ways. Seminal incontinence is not common as the result of sexual coition, and it is highly probable that when married men are affected the sexual excess is engrafted upon a previously vicious habit. From a practical point of view, it is of the first importance to be aware of the fact that one or more strictures of the urethra will be found in 80 per cent. of all cases, and that decided hyperæsthesia of the prostatic portion of the urethra is present in 94 per cent. of all instances.

The rational explanation of morbid seminal emissions seems to be as follows: Under the influence of erotic ideas, masturbation, sexual excesses, or unsatisfied sexual excitement produced by dallying with women, exaggerated irritability of the genital organs is induced, and is {141} followed by subacute or chronic inflammation and abnormal sensibility of the urethra, particularly of its prostatic division, which terminate, in cases characterized by diurnal pollutions and spermorrhagia, in relaxation and dilatation of the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts. As the natural result of the constant excitability of the terminal filaments of the nerves distributed to the prostatic urethra, these nerves are alive to the slightest impressions, act as peripheral sources of irritation, and induce permanent increased mobility or irritability of the cerebral and spinal genital centres, through which the motor nerves of the ejaculatory apparatus are thrown into action, and an emission ensues.

Seminal incontinence is an occasional accompaniment of injuries of the spine, and it is also met with during the progress of or convalescence from acute and chronic diseases which are marked by disturbances or exhaustion of the central nervous system. Thus, it may be symptomatic of phthisis, variola, typhus, progressive muscular atrophy, and incipient bulbar paralysis, ataxia, and paraplegia; while the habitual use of opium and chronic alcoholism predispose to its occurrence.

Of the local causes referable to the genitalia, by far the most important and most frequent are hyperæsthesia and inflammation of the prostatic portion of the urethra, which are generally induced by masturbation. These lesions constitute the primary source of the trouble in the large majority of cases, and tend not only to excite reflex pollutions, but to maintain the disorder by keeping the mind occupied with sexual matters. Other common local causes are found in congenital narrowing of the meatus, organic stricture of the urethra, a redundant prepuce, balanitis, and the accumulation of smegma. Among the more infrequent etiological factors may be mentioned herpes of the prepuce, congenital shortness of the frenum, spasmodic stricture, polypus of the deep urethra, spermato-cystitis, and epididymitis.

Among the remaining exciting causes of pollutions are diseases of the anus and rectum, as hemorrhoids, morbid growths, ascarides, fissures, ulcers, pruritus, and painful eruptions. The nerves of the rectum and anus being derived from the same region as those of the genitalia, it is not surprising that the ejaculatory centre should respond to an impulse transmitted from them. In habitual constipation straining at stool may also excite an emission through the consentaneous action of the muscles of the abdomen, rectum, and seminal vesicles; but this is only observed when the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts are paralyzed and patulous.

ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS.--There are no records of the morbid appearances which appertain to seminal incontinence in its early stage, but that the hyperæsthesia of the prostatic urethra depends upon chronic or subacute inflammation is rendered certain by the concomitant symptoms, by exploration with the sound, aided by the finger in the rectum, and by the results of treatment. In the advanced stage, post-mortem inspection has disclosed stricture of the urethra, injection of the mucous membrane of the deep portion of the urethra, dilatation and excoriation of the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts, and suppuration of the prostate and the seminal vesicles. The changes which occur in the nervous centres are unknown.

DIAGNOSIS.--The microscope affords the only positive mode of determining whether the fluid which is discharged from the urethra during {142} pollutions, or constantly moistens that canal in spermorrhagia, or is expelled at stool or with the urine, or is brought away by the bulb of the explorer, is seminal in its character. Should spermatozoids be detected, there can be no doubt as to its true nature, but their absence is not an evidence that the case is not one of spermatic incontinence, since in the condition known as azoospermatorrhoea the exhausted sexual apparatus furnishes a thin, transparent, watery fluid which may be entirely devoid of fertilizing elements, and contains cylinder epithelial cells, epithelium which has undergone fatty or colloid degeneration, a few lymph-corpuscles, an abundance of fatty detritus, and a few small shining bodies which are the remains of the badly-evolved spermatozoids. Under these circumstances, the history of the case, the fact that the subject is or was a masturbator, and the associated nervous symptoms are aids in forming a diagnosis; and this is especially true of cases in which a fluid is expressed at stool, and which in the majority of instances is the altered secretion of the prostate. Under the microscope the thin, more or less milky prostatic fluid will be found to contain cylinder epithelium, numberless colorless and refracting granules of lecithin, and minute yellowish concentric amyloid concretions; and, after it has slowly dried upon the slide, crystals of phosphate of magnesium or of ammonio-magnesian phosphate will make their appearance.

Should a microscopical examination be impracticable, we may assume that the discharge which occurs during defecation in the subjects of too frequent nocturnal pollutions is an evidence of coexisting prostatorrhoea; while we may frame the rule that the flocculent sediment contained in the urine and the discharge at stool of persons suffering from both nocturnal and diurnal pollutions, and a slight continued discharge from the urethra represents semen. In the last event we may moreover assume, especially if the patient be impotent, that the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts are relaxed.

PROGNOSIS.--Nocturnal emissions are very amenable to treatment, particularly when they are kept up by appreciable local lesions, the only cases which are, as a rule, rebellious being those in which the pollutions are associated with chronic inflammation of the seminal vesicles. In expressing an opinion in a given case the physician should, however, be influenced by the severity of the signs of nervous exhaustion. If the general symptoms point to involvement of the cord alone, the prognosis is far better than when signs of cerebrasthenia are present; but the outlook is bad if, in addition to cerebral and spinal exhaustion, the patient is a sexual hypochondriac. Nocturnal pollutions occurring during the progress of acute or chronic general disorders are also, as a rule, readily checked. The prognosis in the same class of cases is, moreover, far better when the usual local lesion--namely, morbid sensibility of the prostatic urethra--has been induced by gonorrhoea rather than by masturbation; and it is also more favorable when the pollutions occur in mature years from sexual excesses than when they are due early in life to masturbation.

Even when the emissions occur during the day from trivial psychical or mechanical causes, ample experience has convinced me that the prognosis is far better than many writers would lead one to believe. These cases are, however, less tractable than those of nocturnal pollutions, but {143} they finally recover with the exercise of a little patience. The worst outlook is when the emissions are passive, or occur without the orgasm, or during urination and defecation. In this class of cases not only are the ordinary remedies applicable to the other varieties demanded, but measures will have to be resorted to to overcome the paralyzed and dilated orifices of the ejaculatory ducts. Although the prognosis is not as favorable, I have never seen an example of spermorrhagia that did not finally yield to treatment.

TREATMENT.--Certain hygienic and moral rules must be observed in the management of all the varieties of seminal incontinence. The diet should be plain, nutritious, and digestible; the evening meal should be light and dry; and spirits and malt liquors, as well as stimulating articles of food, should be eschewed. As the morning fulness of the bladder is very liable to produce an erection, that organ should be thoroughly emptied on retiring; and as pollutions usually occur toward morning, the patient should set an alarm-clock one hour before the time at which he has generally observed that the emissions take place, in order that he may be awakened to relieve the bladder of its contents. He should also sleep upon a hair mattress without much covering. Everything calculated to induce a flow of blood to the genitalia, such as horseback exercise, driving over rough roads, and railway travelling, should be interdicted. Masturbation and sexual intercourse must be abandoned, and the subject should be informed that the enforced rest of the organs will possibly result in temporary increased frequency of the pollutions. Chaste associations should be cultivated, and erotic thoughts and desires be banished. To attain this end the mind and body should be kept pleasantly occupied by gymnastic exercises and the study of any subject which the patient may fancy. If, however, he be not in full health, or if there are commencing or marked signs of spinal or cerebral exhaustion, mental and physical exercise should be taken in moderation.

In the treatment of involuntary seminal emissions a thorough examination should be made of the genital and associated organs, with the view of detecting and getting rid of any reflex or eccentric lesions or causes which predispose to, or even excite and maintain, them in impressible subjects. If the patient has a redundant prepuce, it should be removed; if the meatus be contracted, it should be enlarged; while balanitis, herpes, hemorrhoids, rectal fissure or ulcer, or pruritus should be treated in the usual way. In not a few mild cases, particularly those dependent upon phimosis, a contracted meatus, or a stricture just behind the orifice, it will be found that operative interference is quite sufficient to bring about relief. Habitual constipation, which is met with in about one-third of all instances, demands particular attention, either by enemata of temperate water or a pill composed of one-tenth of a grain each of aloin and extract of belladonna, administered every eight hours.

In the section on the etiology and pathogeny of seminal incontinence attention is called to the fact that hyperæsthesia of the prostatic urethra is nearly always present. While it is undoubtedly true that the genital nervous centres may be highly impressible without the intervention of hyperæmia, inflammation, and abnormal sensibility of the prostatic urethra, it is none the less true that those lesions are the most constant and most important of all the causes which excite and maintain the {144} disorder, especially in masturbators, in whom, moreover, strictures may be looked for in about eight-tenths of all cases. As a rule, the coarctations will be formed just behind the meatus, but others may be present posteriorly. Be this as it may, a knowledge of their existence is of the first importance, as they aggravate the morbid condition of the prostatic urethra and serve to keep up a peripheral source of spinal neurasthenia.

For the detection of a stricture the exploratory or acorn-headed soft bougie should be resorted to, as it is the only instrument with which coarctations of large calibre and granular patches can be accurately defined, and with which abnormal discharges can be withdrawn for minute examination. One being selected which fills the meatus, it is warmed and well oiled, and inserted as far as the bladder. Should its introduction be arrested, smaller sizes are successively employed until one will pass without difficulty. On its withdrawal the abrupt shoulder of the bulb coming in contact with the posterior face of the stricture imparts to the touch a sensation as if it had jumped over a band, while a granular patch conveys the impression of a limited roughness of the canal. Hyperæsthesia of the urethra is readily determined by the nickel-plated steel bougie, and its existence should never be based upon the passage of the soft explorer alone, as the latter is productive of far more pain than the former. In conducting these examinations a contracted meatus or a stricture just behind the orifice should first be divided, in order that the instruments for exploration may correspond to the normal calibre of the urethra. Unless this point receives attention the examination will be likely to prove valueless. Should one or more strictures be present, the case must be referred to a surgeon.

From the preceding considerations it follows that the treatment, whether it be local or general, must at the outset be of a calming and sedative nature, the end in view in the great majority of instances being to overcome the exaggerated irritability of the genital nervous centres and the abnormal sensibility of the deep urethra. By the indiscriminate employment of strychnia, cantharides, phosphorus, and cold ablutions great harm is done, and the management of involuntary seminal emissions is brought into disrepute.

Of the local remedies to overcome the hyperæsthesia of the prostatic urethra, there is not one entitled to so much confidence as the nickel-plated conical steel bougie, passed at intervals of four days, and at once withdrawn for the first few insertions, after which, with the decrease of the sensibility, the intervals should be shortened, and it should be retained longer, until it is inserted every forty-eight hours and permitted to remain in the canal for a few minutes. The size of the first instrument is to be gauged by that of the meatus if it be normal, and if it be found necessary during the course of the treatment the orifice should be enlarged, in order that bougies of progressively increasing sizes may be introduced until they correspond to the full calibre or distensibility of the urethra, as indicated by the urethrameter. Unless these precautions be observed the measure will not bring about the desired result.

As a rule, the bougie will meet the indication, but in exceptional instances a small, circumscribed area of tenderness remains, which comprises the sinus pocularis, and which proves rebellious to instrumentation. Under these circumstances it becomes necessary to apply a drop or two of {145} a solution of nitrate of silver to the spot, which is best done with a small syringe attached to a perforated bulbous explorer. The ordinary forms of porte-caustique charged with the fused nitrate are objectionable, as the remedy does not come in contact with the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts contained within the sinus pocularis, and its application cannot be properly controlled. From an ample experience I can confidently recommend the use of a thirty-grain solution, repeated every four days. Provided the patient be kept in bed for a few hours, the pain and desire to urinate will not last more than thirty minutes. When the affection proves to be more than ordinarily obstinate, flying blisters, made by pencilling cantharidial collodion first on the one side of the perineal raphé, and, after the surface has healed, on the opposite side, will prove serviceable.

In addition to these measures great assistance will be derived on retiring from the hot sitz-bath, or from a sponge or cloth dipped in water at a temperature of at least 105° F. and applied to the perineum and lower part of the spine. Cold applications are to be studiously avoided.

Of the general remedies, not a single one is comparable to bromide of potassium, which not only diminishes the reflex excitability of the cord and suspends sexual desires and the power of erection, but corrects the acidity of the urine and exerts an anæsthetic effect upon the mucous membrane of the urethra. I am in the habit of administering from three to four scruples of the salt at bedtime, and if I find that it sets up signs of bromism I diminish it for a time, and afterward promote its excretion by the kidneys by combining with it about fifteen grains of bitartrate of potassium. Should the patient be anæmic, the dose should be reduced to one drachm, and three grains of quinine along with twenty-five drops of the tincture of the chloride of iron should be ordered every eight hours. When, on the other hand, the patient is robust and plethoric or in full health, I frequently add to the bromide ten drops of veratrum viride or tincture of gelsemium, or administer the bromide in half an ounce of the infusion of digitalis.

Another remedy which diminishes the reflex mobility of the genito-spinal centre, at the same time that it reduces the secretion of the seminal fluid, is the sulphate of atropia. Given in the average dose of the one-sixtieth of a grain on retiring, so that the patient may sleep through its disagreeable action, it will be found to be an invaluable addition to the treatment.

When the bromide of potassium and atropia do not agree with the patient, I substitute the monobromide of camphor and extract of belladonna in the proportion of ten grains of the former to one-third of a grain of the latter. In the remaining anaphrodisiacs, such as lupulin, camphor, and conium, I have not the slightest confidence.

Under the plan of treatment thus outlined the majority of cases of nocturnal and diurnal pollutions recover; but if the spinal genital centre still remains too impressible, galvanization with the anode to the lumbar region and the cathode to the perineum will prove highly serviceable. When the condition is one of spermorrhagia, after the hyperæsthetic symptoms have subsided the relaxed and paralyzed orifices of the ejaculatory ducts may be restored to their normal condition by the continuous current, the negative reophore being placed in the rectum and the positive on the perineum or the lumbar vertebræ. Should galvanization fail, {146} the induced current may be passed through a negative catheter electrode in the prostatic urethra to the anode resting on the perineum or spine; but this mode of application requires great caution, and a feeble power should be employed at the commencement. For this reason the rectal is preferable to the urethral reophore. In the absence of electrical apparatus the tonicity of the muscles of the ejaculatory ducts may be greatly improved, and even restored, by the use of the cooling sound, by the application of a thirty-grain solution of nitrate of silver, and by cold sitz-baths. In these cases half a drachm of the fluid extract of ergot after each meal, or fifteen drops of a mixture composed of six drachms of the tincture of the chloride of iron and two drachms of the tincture of cantharides, will also prove valuable. The operations of castration and excision of portions of the vas deferens need only be mentioned to be condemned.

To sum up the results of my experience in the management of seminal incontinence, I may add that the steel bougie, bromide of potassium, and atropia are especially adapted to cases of nocturnal and diurnal pollutions, and that after the hyperæsthesia has been relieved electricity, ergot, and strychnia are the most reliable agents in spermorrhagia. The end having been accomplished, moderation in sexual intercourse should be enjoined if the patient is married; continence in thought and action should be observed if he remains single; and matrimony should be advised if his circumstances and inclination warrant it. Marriage should not, however, be encouraged if the emissions are not arrested, as I have met with several cases in which the patient was rendered miserable by this act, from the fact that he deemed his case beyond all hope, as the emissions still continued.

{147}

DISPLACEMENTS OF THE UTERUS. BY E. C. DUDLEY, A.B., M.D.

The title of this article is not to be taken in a restricted sense, inasmuch as the uterus is anatomically so connected with adjacent organs that the displacements of the uterus cannot be intelligently considered or satisfactorily presented without at the same time incidentally taking into account the displacements, causative, resultant, or concurrent, of the ovaries, Fallopian tubes, rectum, vagina, and bladder.

Normal Location and Position of the Uterus.[1]

[Footnote 1: The importance of a distinction between location and position will become apparent hereafter: by the former is meant the situation of the organ regardless of its attitude, by the latter is meant the attitude alone. To change an object from one place to another is to change its location; to turn it over or bend it upon itself is to change its position.]

In the works on anatomy and gynecology which we are accustomed to consult the uterus is represented as having a straight or nearly straight canal--as lying about midway between the symphysis pubis and the hollow of the sacrum, its axis corresponding to that of the pelvic inlet. They generally agree that its position is one of slight, and only slight, anteversion; some admit that slight anteflexion may not be injurious, but most would pronounce the organ anteverted or anteflexed to a degree that would endanger health if by conjoined manipulations its anterior wall could be felt through the anterior wall of the vagina. The classical idea of the normal position of the uterus presupposes a distended bladder and rectum occupying the anterior and the posterior thirds of the pelvic cavity. Such an arrangement would leave for the uterus only the intermediate space, and would constitute a condition seldom or never realized in health.

Suppose a straight line coincident with the vesico-vaginal wall (Fig. 1) to be continued through the cervix to the sacrum. This line represents approximately the antero-posterior diameter of the pelvis. The length of the vesico-vaginal wall is two and a half inches, and, supposing the cervix to be just midway between the symphysis and the sacrum, the distance from its posterior wall to the sacrum must also be two and a half inches. Add to the sum of these two parts of this antero-posterior diameter one inch for the cervix, and the antero-posterior diameter of the pelvis becomes six inches instead of the normal four and one-third; which proves that the cervix must normally be much nearer to the hollow of {148} the sacrum than to the symphysis. Since the length of the vesico-vaginal wall plus the diameter of the cervix measures three and one-half inches, it follows that the distance from the posterior wall of the cervix to the hollow of the sacrum must be the difference between four and one-third and three and one-half inches, or five-sixths of an inch.

Again, suppose the uterus (Fig. 1) to be carried bodily upward and backward, its axis remaining the same, until the cervix reach its normal position near the hollow of the sacrum; then would the body of the uterus impinge upon the bony sacrum. It is therefore clear that the anteversion must be the normal position, because the uterus and sacrum would otherwise occupy the same space.

Fig. 2 represents, according to Schultze,[2] the location and position of the virgin uterus and its surroundings, the bladder, rectum, and vagina being empty and collapsed. The angle of about 90° which the cervix forms with the vagina measures the forward inclination of the cervix, but is subject to slight variations in consequence of the physiological {149} movements of the uterus. The body is furthermore bent forward upon the cervix, so that its anterior surface rests upon the empty bladder. The angle of the normal anteflexion, according to careful measurements by Schultze, is about 48°; Fritsch says that 90° is the physiological limit. This question will be further considered under the subject of pathological anteflexions.

[Footnote 2: Archiv für Gynäkologie, 1875, Band viii. p. 134, and Lageveranderungen der Gebarmutter, Berlin, 1881.

Ely Van de Warker makes a full and critical study of the normal movements of the unimpregnated uterus in the N. Y. Medical Journal, xxi. p. 337, and of the normal position and movements of the unimpregnated uterus in the American Journal of Obstetrics, xi. p. 314. His conclusions substantially agree with those of Schultze.

Frank P. Foster (American Journal of Obstetrics, xiii. p. 30) presents a valuable paper giving a résumé of the literature, with original observations, in which he takes exceptions in part to the views of Schultze.]

Normal Movements of the Uterus.

Strictly, the uterus can have no absolutely normal position or location, because it has a certain normal range of movements which depend to some extent upon respiration, intra-abdominal forces, and locomotion, but more especially upon the varying quantity of material in the rectum and bladder. Its normal position, then, varies within the limits of its normal movements. If the body of the uterus rest upon the bladder, it must rise as the bladder becomes distended, and, conversely, if the urine be drawn through a catheter while the woman is lying on her back, the uterus, notwithstanding the opposing influence of its own weight, immediately follows the receding wall of the bladder and returns through an angle of 45°, or possibly even 90°, to its accustomed position. The dotted lines in Fig. 2 indicate the degree of version and flexion consequent upon the varying quantity of fluid in the bladder.

{150} The full rectum forces the uterus in the opposite direction, toward the symphysis, and thereby counteracts the influence of the bladder. This anterior movement is, however, somewhat limited, and is confined to the cervical portion, except when the body has been forced back into close proximity with the rectum by the over-distended bladder.

Normal Supports of the Uterus.

The uterus is maintained in its normal position and location by the following agents:

a. The uterine ligaments;

b. The pelvic floor.[3]

[Footnote 3: For a description of the female pelvic floor see Hart's Atlas.]

a. Physiologically, these ligaments are relaxed; the state of tension would be pathological; they do not fix the uterus; they only tend to limit its movements to their normal range. Backward displacement of the body is resisted by the round ligaments, backward displacement of the cervix by the utero-vesical ligaments and by the vesico-vaginal wall. Forward and downward displacements are resisted by the utero-sacral ligaments, and excessive lateral motion by the broad ligaments. This restraining power is doubtless greater in the utero-sacral than in any of the other ligaments.

b. The pelvic floor, which is the chief support of the uterus, is divided into two segments, the pubic and the sacral. The pubic segment[4] is composed of bladder, urethra, anterior vaginal wall, and bladder peritoneum. It is attached in front to the symphysis pubis and laterally to the anterior bony walls of the pelvis. The sacral segment[5] is composed of rectum, perineum, posterior vaginal wall, and strong tendinous and muscular tissue. It is attached to the coccyx, to the sacrum, and to the posterior wall of the bony pelvis.

[Footnote 4: Hart and Barbour's Manual of Gynecology.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid.]

Permeating the pelvic floor in all directions, entering into the composition of its single parts, binding them together, and sending its processes to the bony pelvis, is the pelvic connective tissue, upon the integrity of which depends the integrity of the pelvic floor as a uterine support. Its pernicious influence as a pathological factor will be considered hereafter. The old idea that the uterus is supported by the vaginal walls or by the perineum or by the uterine ligaments is obsolete; they are important parts of the pubic and sacral segments, and as such contribute their share, but the pelvic floor as a whole supports the uterus. The various uterine supports are to a great extent the seat of motor influence. They consequently not only resist excessive movement, but also serve to return the organ from its physiological migrations.

DEFINITION AND NOMENCLATURE OF DISPLACEMENTS.--In the foregoing pages the normal location, position, movements, and supports of the uterus have been defined. Those conditions are pathological which induce changes to positions or locations beyond the defined limits, or which so fix the organ that its normal movements are prevented. The displacements are divided into mal-locations and malpositions.

The mal-locations in which the entire uterus occupies a place outside {151} its normal limits are as follows: ascent, retro-location, ante-location, lateral location, descent.

The malpositions are determined by excessive change in the inclination of the uterine axis. They are further divided into flexions, in which the organ is bent upon itself in an abnormal degree, manner, or direction; and versions, in which the axis of the unflexed uterus inclines in an abnormal degree or direction. The malpositions are retroversion, retroflexion, lateral version, lateral flexion, anteversion, anteflexion.

SYMPTOMS AND DIAGNOSIS IN GENERAL.--Each variety of displacement may be indicated by its own group of symptoms and physical signs. These will be presented in the study of the special lesions. To avoid repetition, those symptoms and signs which pertain to no special displacement, but which belong to all alike, will be mentioned at once. They may arise either from the displacement itself or from its possible complications, of which the following are examples: Metritis, ovaritis, salpingitis, atresia and stenosis, cystitis, vesical catarrh, rectitis, rectal catarrh, peri-uterine cellulitis and peritonitis, uterine catarrh, tumors, cicatrices, etc.

Uterine displacement may be a cause or an effect of associated complications, or together with them it may be a concurrent result of some common cause, or it may have had primarily no pathological connection with them. The symptoms of displacement refer to the pelvic organs or to the nervous system. Among the symptoms which refer to the pelvic organs are--difficulty in walking and standing; pelvic pain, more or less constant; dysmenorrhoea, menorrhagia, sterility, frequent abortion, constipation, painful or difficult defecation, dysuria, polyuria, tenesmus, etc. Among the symptoms which refer to the nervous system are--neuralgia in various parts, paralysis, hysteria, nervous dyspepsia, anæmia, chlorosis, spinal irritation, etc.

The final diagnosis must always depend upon direct examination of the uterus itself. The first division of the above group of symptoms is not likely to escape notice as indicative of displacement, but the nervous symptoms are constantly disregarded or treated without reference to their possible pelvic origin. The frequent dependence of these nervous phenomena upon displacement is proved by their persistence in many cases after ordinary treatment, by their prompt disappearance upon permanent replacement and retention of the uterus by mechanical means, and by their equally prompt recurrence upon removal of the support. The presence, therefore, of the second division of the group or any part thereof, even though the first be absent, will justify, may even necessitate, a careful investigation into the state of the pelvic organs.

That examination which results only in giving the name to a special variety of displacement, and does not include the complicating lesions, would not furnish a sufficient guide to the therapeutic indications, and is therefore inadequate. The successful treatment, for instance, of an anteflexion dependent upon inflammation of the utero-sacral ligaments must include the removal of the inflammation.

An important prerequisite to examination is the absence of material in the rectum and bladder. The full rectum distorts the vaginal walls, deprives the examiner of the space necessary for the introduction of the speculum, and throws the uterus out of its accustomed position. Much more troublesome is the presence of even a small quantity of urine in {152} the bladder, because it causes the patient to render the abdominal muscles tense when the hand is placed over the lower portion of the abdomen for bimanual palpation, and makes it impossible to engage the uterus between the hand and the examining finger. The distended bladder by pushing the uterus upward and backward makes bimanual palpation almost useless. It is not surprising that conflicting opinions are common, when one day the patient is examined with rectum and bladder full, another day empty; one day in the dorsal, another in Sims's or the knee-chest position; one day with the cylindrical or bivalve speculum, another day with Sims's or Simon's.

For digital examination the dorsal position is preferred: the patient should be drawn close to the edge of a bed, or preferably a table, the thighs being flexed, the feet about fifteen inches apart, and the knees widely separated. The examiner should stand facing the patient, never at the side. The index finger of the left[6] hand, lubricated with vaseline or oil, then slowly advances over the perineum into the vagina, noting the condition of the perineum, the presence or absence of cicatrices or of sub-involution of the vagina or perineum, the capacity of the vagina, the condition, size, and direction of the cervix, its distance from the sacrum and vulva, its mobility or fixation. Now, for the first time, the right hand is pressed well down behind the pubes, and the uterus is engaged between it and the examining finger. (See Figs. 16 and 17.) In this way the examiner may determine more accurately the position, location, and size of the entire organ; may detect the possible presence of complicating tumors, both inflammatory and non-inflammatory; may also note, if possible, the location and condition of the ovaries, which, especially in the posterior displacements, are liable to be prolapsed and excessively sensitive, and to constitute, therefore, a most intractable complication. The index finger sweeps around the cervix in search of tender places which may be the result of former cellulitis or the expression of some neurosis. Above all, the digital examination requires a light, gentle, delicate touch.

[Footnote 6: The left-hand method of examination is incomparably superior to the right. The palmar surface of the index finger is more easily directed toward the left side of the pelvis, which is especially subject to disease. Its tactile sense is more acute and more easily educated. The stronger right hand should be free to palpate the surface of the abdomen in conjoined manipulation.]

In exploring the uterine cavity to learn its position the fine silver-wire probe of Emmet--not the sound--should be used. The uterus, if freely movable, is liable to be thrown out of its accustomed position by the heavier, unyielding sound. The sound also causes much more pain and exposes the patient to great danger of cellulitis. The frequent lighting and relighting of pelvic inflammation by injudicious slight manipulations of the uterus doubtless led Emmet to the utterance of a prophecy which ought to become classical: "A great advance in the treatment of the diseases of women will be made whenever practitioners become so impressed with the significance of cellulitis as to apprehend its existence in every case. The successful operator in this branch of surgery will always be on the lookout for the existence of cellulitis, and take measures to guard against its occurrence."

When the probe or the sound is used without the speculum, the patient {153} should be on the back and the index finger of the left hand should be used as a guide. The bivalve and cylindrical specula are almost useless in explorations of the interior of the uterus. The exploration is most effectually and gently made with Sims's speculum, the patient being in the left latero-prone position. In some cases the probe cannot be passed by any other method.

Ascent of the Uterus.

This mal-location may result from traction above or from pressure below. The organ may be drawn upward and backward by shortening of the utero-sacral ligaments, which results from inflammation and which usually induces a troublesome form of anteflexion. The enlarged pregnant uterus sometimes becomes attached by adhesive inflammation to a portion of the peritoneum in one of the higher zones of the pelvis or in the abdomen, and the organ may consequently remain fixed in its elevated position after involution. A tumor connected with the uterus or its appendages which has grown too large to be retained in the pelvis may, upon rising into the abdomen, drag the uterus with it. Pressure below may come from excessive distension of the rectum or bladder, or from a large accumulation of menstrual fluid in the vagina, or from a tumor originating in any portion of the pelvis below the level of the uterus. In diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment this displacement is wholly subordinate to the more significant lesions of which it is only the incidental result.

Retro-location of the Uterus.

The uterus may be forced back into a post-normal location by the presence of a tumor in front or by the distended bladder, or it may be drawn back and fixed by peritoneal adhesions. Retro-location is liable to induce vesical irritation by putting the vesico-vaginal wall on the stretch and thereby dragging on the neck of the bladder. This intractable symptom is sometimes relieved by Emmet's buttonhole operation of urethrotomy, for an account of which see section on Anteflexion. This operation would obviously be applicable also for the relief of the same symptom when caused by ascent of the uterus.

Ante-location of the Uterus.

The causes of this displacement are similar to those which produce retro-location; they are--distension of the rectum, post-uterine hæmatocele, post-uterine tumors, and peritoneal adhesions. Ante-location often causes vesical irritation, consequent upon the invasion by the uterus of that space which belongs to the bladder.

Lateral Locations of the Uterus.

The entire uterus is often displaced to the right or the left by a tumor or by an inflammatory exudate. The latter occurs as a product of {154} cellulitis, usually in the left broad ligament, and crowds the organ toward the opposite side of the pelvis. After resolution the ligament, shortened by inflammatory contraction, draws the uterus to the affected side and fixes it there. Lateral displacement from this cause often accompanies laceration of the cervix, the cellulitis having occurred on the side corresponding to the laceration.

Descent or Prolapse of the Uterus.

The nature of this displacement is clearly indicated by its name. It is convenient to distinguish three degrees of descent: In the first the organ is displaced downward and forward until sufficient space has been gained between the cervix and the sacrum to permit the body to turn back into extreme retroversion; in the second the cervix descends to the vulva; in the third the uterus protrudes partially or wholly through the vulva, constituting a condition sometimes called procidentia.

ETIOLOGY AND CLINICAL HISTORY.--Descent may be the result of any or all of the following causes: I. Pressure from above; II. Weakening of the supports; III. Increased weight of the uterus; IV. Traction from below. Either of the above conditions being the primary cause, the others singly or combined may result.

I. Pressure from above may depend upon the presence of a pelvic or abdominal tumor, ascites, fecal accumulations, tight or heavy clothing, etc.

II. The uterine supports may be weakened and relaxed in consequence of subinvolution, senile atrophy, abnormally large pelvis, increased weight of the uterus, pressure from above, traction from below, etc.

III. Increased weight of the uterus may be caused by congestion, subinvolution, hypertrophy, hyperplasia, pregnancy, fluid in the endometrium, uterine tumors, etc.

IV. Traction from below may be due to vaginal cicatrices, abnormally short vagina, falling of the pelvic floor, etc.

Obviously, descent of the vesico- and recto-vaginal walls, or, more comprehensively, the sacral and pubic segments of the pelvic floor, involves also concurrent descent of the uterus. Descent of the vagina, therefore, must be studied in connection with the descent of the uterus. Excessive descent of the vaginal walls usually originates with parturition.

In labor the anterior wall of the vagina is so depressed, stretched, and shortened by the advancing head that during and after the second stage the anterior lip of the cervix may be seen behind the urethra. If the puerperium progress favorably, with prompt involution of the uterus, vagina, perineum, and peritoneum, the relaxation of the vesico-vaginal wall and of the utero-sacral supports disappears and the uterus resumes its normal multiparous location and position.[7] But if the enlarged uterus remain in the long axis of the vagina, with its fundus incarcerated in the hollow of the sacrum between the utero-sacral ligaments, and with its sacral supports so stretched that they cannot recover their contractile power, and with involution of all the pelvic organs arrested, the descent {155} may not only persist, but may even progress with constantly increasing cystocele to the third degree of prolapse. The downward influence of the above conditions may be materially increased by rupture of the perineum, and consequent prolapse of the recto-vaginal wall into a pouch called rectocele.

[Footnote 7: The anteflexion of the multiparous uterus is less than that of the virgin.]

In the great majority of cases of complete prolapse the posterior vaginal wall in its descent is peeled off from the rectum, leaving the latter in its normal position. In rare instances the lower portion of the rectum is also found to have extruded in extreme rectocele, making a pouch below and in front of the anus, where fecal matter may accumulate and remain in hard scybalæ.

Obviously, complete prolapse of the uterus is only an incident to the prolapse of the pelvic floor. The whole mechanism is in all respects analogous to that of hernia. The extruded mass drags after it a peritoneal sac, which, hernia-like, contains small intestine. This sac forces its way to the pelvic outlet and extrudes through the vulva, having the inverted vagina for its covering.

In descent of the first degree the location of the uterus is either changed to a lower level, the position remaining normal, or, as is more common, the cervix having moved nearer to the symphysis and the organ turns back into retroversion. In a given case suppose the vaginal walls from some cause to have become relaxed and to have settled {156} to a lower level in the pelvis. As an associated fact the uterus to which these walls are attached must then also occupy a place correspondingly nearer to the vulva--i.e. the location of the uterus has changed, so that space enough intervenes between it and the hollow of the sacrum for the former to turn back into the position of retroversion or retroflexion. If, on the contrary, the descending uterus still maintains its normal anteversion and anteflexion, it must occupy space which belongs to the bladder. The vesical irritation consequent upon this mal-location has generally been ascribed to the anteversion and anteflexion, which are therefore oftentimes wrongly pronounced pathological. The prompt relief which follows permanent replacement of the organ in the normal location, even though in so doing its anteposition be exaggerated, proves that the symptoms depend upon the mal-location, not upon the anteposition. The importance of a clear distinction, therefore, between location and position becomes apparent. Vesical irritation, moreover, is sometimes caused by the dragging of the uterus upon the neck of the bladder. This traction occurs not only in ascent, but also when the organ descends below a certain level.

In the foregoing paragraphs traction due to the falling pelvic floor has been discussed as a cause of descent. The impairment of the uterine supports may, however, be such that instead of falling and dragging the uterus after them, they simply permit it to descend along the vaginal canal by the force of its own weight, and to carry with it the reduplicated vaginal walls. This influence is generally enforced by the increased weight of the diseased organ. The vagina more readily becomes a track for the descending uterus when from any cause the normal forward direction of the vaginal canal changes toward the vertical: this change may occur either as the result of a forward displacement of its upper extremity, involving anteposition of the cervix, or of a retro-displacement of its {157} lower extremity in consequence of rupture or subinvolution of the perineum. (See Fig. 3.) Descent in the track of the vagina is obviously combined with some degree of retroversion, because the axes of the uterus and vagina then correspond.

The PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY may involve all the displaced organs. The circulation throughout the pelvis is impeded by traction upon the vessels, and the entire pelvic contents therefore become the subject of venous congestion, with consequences disastrous to local innervation and nutrition.

The ovaries may suffer concurrent displacement, with resulting inflammatory and cystic enlargement. The peritoneum which enters into the formation of the uterine ligaments and of the pelvic floor is dragged along with the uterus.

The vagina is hypertrophied and swollen. Its mucous membrane becomes the seat of acute vaginitis and chronic catarrh. In the third degree of descent the exposed vagina, no longer lubricated by the normal secretions of the uterus, becomes dry, parchment-like, oedematous, eroded, and ulcerated. Sometimes the cul-de-sac of Douglas is distended by downward pressure of the intestines, by a small tumor, or by ascitic fluid, and a consequent hernial sac may protrude into the vagina through some portion of the posterior vaginal fornix. The anterior fornix is subject to a similar accident. These conditions are designated enterocele vaginalis, anterior and posterior.

The rectum and bladder are subject to inflammation and chronic catarrh, and the bladder especially to concurrent descent. The uterus may be enlarged from any one or all of a variety of causes--congestion, subinvolution, hypertrophy, and hyperplasia. Its cervix is often the seat of extreme erosion or so-called ulceration. The endometrium, in order to relieve the organ of its surplus blood, gives forth an excessive secretion of mucus, which upon being increased in quantity becomes vitiated in quality. This is termed uterine catarrh. The enlargement of the uterus often pertains more to the cervix than to the body, especially in prolapse of the second and third degrees. An explanation of this may be found in Figs. 5 and 6.

Apparent elongation and disproportionate circular enlargement of the cervix are conditions which almost every standard author wrongly calls hypertrophic elongation and circular hypertrophy. The question of elongation is easily settled by placing the patient in the knee-chest position. Then the uterus by its own weight falls toward the diaphragm, the vagina unfolds, and the apparent utero-vaginal attachment X' Z' (Figs. 5 and 6) disappears, disclosing the actual attachment, X Z. Further, the point of the sound, passed into the bladder while the {158} cervix is exposed by Sims's speculum, may be placed against the anterior wall of the cervix at Z, which would be impossible if the attachment were at Z'.

The comparatively small amount of hypertrophy in disproportionate circular enlargement is proved by the operation of trachelorraphy or by bringing the points a and b (Fig. 6) together with uterine tenacula, the organ being exposed by Sims's speculum. Then the out-rolled intracervical mucous tissues are rolled back, the proper diameter of the cervix is restored, and a laceration on one or both sides, extending past the vaginal attachment, becomes apparent.

Hypertrophy or hyperplasia usually causes a nearly symmetrical enlargement of the entire organ. At any rate, those cases in which the reduplication of the vaginal walls does not almost entirely explain the great elongation so called, or in which great disproportionate circular enlargement has not been caused by laceration of the cervix, are the rare exceptions. The great merit of having secured general assent to the foregoing proposition, and of having given to the subject a new and right direction, must be accorded to Emmet. The cervix now is seldom amputated except for malignant disease.

Congestion of the uterus consequent upon obstruction in the stretched and displaced veins is often so extreme as to induce a state analogous to erection. Measurements by the probe just before and a few minutes after replacement generally show an appreciable decrease in the length of the uterine canal. If the prolapse has been of the third degree, the difference may amount to one or even two inches. It is important not to confound the enlargement of congestion with increase in the solid constituents of the organ.

SYMPTOMS AND COURSE.--A dragging sensation and pelvic and abdominal pain are generally present. Rectocele and cystocele and rectal and vesical catarrh often cause painful and severe functional disturbances of the rectum and bladder. In descent of the third degree excoriations of the exposed vagina and cervix sometimes cause extreme suffering. The course is ordinarily chronic, but attacks of acute vaginitis and pelvic peritonitis are not uncommon. The peritonitis sometimes effects a spontaneous cure by peritoneal adhesions which fasten the uterus in an elevated position and hold it permanently. The symptoms of descent may be so severe as to necessitate absolute rest in bed. In other cases they are often attended with very little discomfort.

{159} DIAGNOSIS is by inspection, palpation, and exploration. The prolapsed uterus may be distinguished from cystocele, rectocele, inverted uterus, and fibroid tumor by the presence of the os externum. The sound may be passed through the urethra into the cystocele, and the finger through the anus into the rectocele. The length of the uterus may be determined by the sound, the size, shape, position, extent of descent, and difficulty of replacement by conjoined manipulation.

PROPHYLAXIS.--This requires such measures during labor as may be necessary to prevent long and powerful pressure upon the pelvic floor. After labor any injury to the perineum should be promptly repaired. The vagina should be kept clean by irrigations. The urine, if necessary, should be regularly drawn and the bowels moved daily without straining. If conditions be present likely to induce subinvolution--such, for example, as pelvic inflammation or laceration of the cervix--they should receive treatment at the proper time. Undue relaxation of the pelvic floor necessitates a more prolonged rest in bed, the use of astringent douches, and the application of a pessary when the patient resumes the upright position.

TREATMENT.--The first indication is replacement, which in the first and second degree of descent is not difficult unless the uterus be held down by cicatrices or by a tumor. Complicating pelvic cellulitis and peritonitis may render replacement dangerous or impossible, and may for a time contraindicate all direct treatment. Replacement of the organs from the third degree of prolapse is accomplished in the inverse order of their descent: first, the posterior vaginal wall, then the uterus, and last the anterior vaginal wall. Not infrequently the completely prolapsed uterus and pelvic floor, hernia-like, become strangulated. Then taxis will usually suffice if supplemented by hot applications, elastic pressure, anodynes, and the knee-chest position. Should these fail anæsthesia may be required.

Undue pressure from above should if possible be removed. The clothing should be loose, and the weight of the skirts supported from the shoulders either by straps or preferably by buttoning them upon a waist made for the purpose. This waist is a good substitute for the corset, which under all circumstances and in all its forms is injurious. Increased uterine weight from subinvolution or congestion is to be overcome by appropriate means. Enlargement of the uterus when due to hypertrophy or hyperplasia is generally incurable. Amputation of the cervix for what was formerly considered circular hypertrophy and hypertrophic elongation is now seldom or never required for the purpose of decreasing uterine weight. Amputation except for malignant disease has given place to the operation of trachelorraphy. Tumors exerting pressure above or traction below should if possible be removed. Regulation of the bowels and general tonics are usually necessary. The knee-chest position assumed several times a day causes the uterus to gravitate toward the diaphragm, and thereby gives temporary rest to the overburdened supports. While in this position the patient should separate the labia, so that the air may rush in and the vagina become expanded. The measures enumerated above, together with rigid care of the diet and of such other hygienic requirements as the individual case may demand, are essential as adjuvants to the more special treatment which almost every case requires.

{160} In exceptional cases of sudden descent, even to the third degree, replacement alone is sometimes followed by permanent relief; but if the descent has been gradual it always recurs immediately after replacement. Measures are therefore required for the maintenance of the uterus in its normal location and position. This indication is fulfilled by pessaries and by operations.

Pessaries.--The function of the pessary is not only to maintain the uterus on the health level in its normal location, but also, if possible, in its normal position, which requires the cervix to be about one inch from the sacrum. The cervix being thus placed, the organ cannot turn back into retroversion, because in so doing the fundus would encounter the sacrum. The direction of least resistance would then be forward into the normal anterior position. The application of the pessary is then based upon the general proposition that if the cervix be normally placed the body of the uterus will in the absence of complications take care of itself. Since the vagina at its upper extremity is attached to the cervix, displacement of the latter is clearly impossible if the upper extremity of the vagina be sustained in its normal location. The pessary restores and maintains the relations of the relaxed vaginal walls by crowding the posterior vaginal cul-de-sac backward into the hollow of the sacrum. It thereby also holds the attached cervix within a proper distance of the sacrum. The Hodge pessary or some modifications thereof fulfils this purpose in ordinary cases more satisfactorily than any other.

The curves of the pessary demand careful attention in its application. When the uterus is below the normal level, the broad ligaments are necessarily rendered more tense than natural, and the blood-vessels, more especially the veins, which are looped one upon the other, and which traverse these ligaments to and from the uterus, are made to collapse. This causes venous congestion and consequent increase in weight of the uterus--a condition favorable to malposition, uterine catarrh, and pathological changes in structure. A pessary which will raise the uterus to the health level clearly fulfils an indication. A pessary which raises it above the health level renders the broad ligaments tense and reproduces a condition which it was designed to relieve. Maintenance of the uterus upon the health level depends largely upon the curves of the pessary. The accompanying cuts illustrate the shape and curve of the Hodge pessary as modified by Emmet and Albert Smith. Fig. 7 represents the curve of Emmet, and Fig. 8 that of Albert Smith. For convenience let us characterize that curve which rests in the posterior vaginal cul-de-sac as the uterine curve, and that which occupies that part of the vagina {161} adjacent to the pubis the pubic curve. The acuteness and length of the uterine curve determine the height to which the pessary will lift the uterus. The longer and more acute the curve, the higher the uterus will be lifted, and vice versâ. The smaller curve of the Emmet modification will answer the average indication more nearly than the sharper curve of the Albert Smith modification, which may lift the uterus too high. The pubic should generally be proportioned to the uterine curve; that is, the greater the uterine, the greater the pubic curve. A pessary properly adjusted in all other respects may, by pressure upon the urethra and neck of the bladder, create vesical tenesmus and urethral irritation. This calls for increase in the pubic curve. The pubic curve may, however, be so great that the lower part of the pessary occupies the centre of the vulva, where it may create irritation. For this condition lessening of the pubic curve is the remedy. The pessary should not be so wide as to distend the vagina. Its length should be measured by the distance from the lower extremity of the symphysis pubis to the posterior vaginal cul-de-sac, less the thickness of the finger. If properly adjusted it should sustain the pelvic floor in its normal relations and the uterus in stable equilibrium.

The uterus in the first and second degrees of descent is usually either retroverted or retroflexed. The reader is therefore referred to the remarks on the application of pessaries in the treatment of these displacements.

In advance prolapse dependent upon extensive injuries to the perineum and other parts of the pelvic floor, and usually associated with extreme subinvolution of all the pelvic organs, the axis of the vagina is often changed from its forward oblique to the vertical direction. (See Fig. 3.) The downward traction of the prolapsing cystocele and rectocele upon the fornix of the vagina may then be so great that the pessary is inadequate to maintain in place the upper extremity of the vagina. The cervix then moves forward, the corpus turns back, and the whole uterus easily descends in a vertical direction along the prolapsing walls of the vagina to the second or third degree of prolapse. In this condition pessaries which disappear within the vagina are liable to be forced out with the prolapsing pelvic floor, or if retained seldom maintain the uterus in position. In such cases the various cup pessaries which are supplied with external attachments and abdominal belts are often used, but they are inadequate, because they either so fix the uterus as to prevent its normal movements, or they hold it in such unstable equilibrium that it may assume any one of the various malpositions, anterior, posterior, or lateral; and they are open to the further serious objection of constantly reminding the patient of their presence. As an expedient the uterus may sometimes be held within the pelvis by means of a large Albert Smith pessary with extreme uterine and pubic curves. The rational treatment, however, requires first an operation on the anterior vaginal wall to restore the fornix of the vagina to its normal place in the hollow of the sacrum, and with it the attached cervix; and second, an operation at the vaginal outlet to bring the posterior wall in contact with the anterior, and thereby to restore the lower extremity of the vagina to its normal place under the pubis.

ANTERIOR ELYTRORRHAPHY.--Numerous operations on the vaginal {162} walls have been devised for the purpose of narrowing the vagina, and thus preventing descent along the vaginal canal, but they are temporary in their results, because, as long as the direction of the vagina remains vertical, its walls again become dilated by the prolapsing uterus and the former condition is re-established. The operation to be effective is performed as follows: A Sims's speculum of long blade, perforated at its extreme end, to which the cervix has been attached by a piece of silver wire, passing through the perforation and the posterior lip, is introduced, the patient being in Sims's position. The cervix is thereby drawn by the point of the speculum far back into the hollow of the sacrum. The author finds this preferable to the method described by Emmet, who has the cervix held back by a sponge probang in the hand of an assistant. The space in the anterior part of the pelvis is now so increased that the uterus readily falls forward into decided anteversion. While the uterus is thus held in position by its attachment to the blade of the speculum, the operator with two uterine tenacula finds in the loose vaginal tissue on either side of the cervix two points which can be brought together in front of the cervix. Then at each of the two lateral points a surface is denuded with the curved scissors about one-half inch square, and in front of the cervix a surface an inch long by half an inch wide across the anterior vaginal wall close to the uterine attachment. A No. 26 silver-wire suture is then passed, as shown in Fig. 9, and twisted as shown in Fig. 10, so as to secure the lateral denuded surfaces in contact with the larger surface in front of the cervix.

Inasmuch as the operation often fails at the point of the first suture, the author has usually introduced two or three of this kind instead of one. Two longitudinal folds are now formed on the anterior vaginal wall, which serve as guides for denuding and turning in the remaining redundant tissue by a line of sutures, which should extend forward along the centre of the vesico-vaginal wall until the folds are lost in the vaginal surface near the neck of the bladder. Sometimes the redundant tissue about the urethra cannot be disposed of by turning it in from side to side. Then it is desirable to make a crescentic denudation across the lower portion of the vagina, its concavity being on the uterine side, and {163} to unite the margins below to those above by means of a curved line of sutures. The completed operation is shown in Fig. 11.

The after-treatment requires the self-retaining Sims's sigmoid catheter in the urethra for a week or frequent catheterization, absolute rest in bed, hot-water vaginal douches, regulation of the bowels, and the removal of the sutures on the twelfth day. After the completion of the operation the cervix is maintained near the hollow of the sacrum, and the organ remains normally anteverted and anteflexed, making an acute angle with the vesico-vaginal wall, which has now been restored to its normal direction and length. Unfortunately, it is not unusual to abandon the patient after this operation, in the vain hope that the uterus and anterior vaginal wall will maintain their normal relations without the support of the perineum and posterior vaginal wall. This is a great mistake, because the cystocele and procidentia almost always completely reappear within a few months. Anterior elytrorrhaphy, therefore, is simply one of the steps in the treatment.

PERINEORRHAPHY.--This is the name usually applied to the repair of the ruptured perineum, but the scope of the operation has been extended to include also the surgical treatment of rectocele and relaxation of the posterior vaginal wall. The most scientific operation yet devised is the one proposed by Emmet,[8] which is performed as follows: The patient being etherized and in the lithotomy position, the operator seizes with a tenaculum the crest of the rectocele or posterior vaginal wall at a point which can be drawn forward without undue traction--point a. With another tenaculum the lowest caruncle or vestige of the hymen (point b), {164} and with another the posterior commissure of the vulva (point c), are hooked up. The triangle included between these points defines one-half of the surface to be denuded. The three tenacula are now placed in the hands of assistants, the sides of the triangle are made tense by traction, and the included surface denuded. The tenaculum at c is then removed, and the middle point of the line a b is caught and drawn toward the interior of the vagina in the direction of the vaginal sulcus on that side, and the sutures are introduced, as in Fig. 13. The same thing is then repeated on the other side, and the sutures are all tightened, forming a line of union running back into each sulcus, as shown in Fig. 14.

[Footnote 8: Trans. Am. Gynæcological Society, 1883; Principles and Practice of Gynecology, 3d ed.]

The essential part of the operation inside the vagina almost always succeeds, but the external part of the rupture at the posterior commissure often fails to unite; furthermore, the operation as described by Emmet does not overcome the patulous condition of the introitus vaginæ in case of great relaxation of the vagina. The author has sought to obviate the first of these difficulties by the use of deep silver sutures instead of the superficial ones described by Emmet. They should be introduced before tightening the vaginal sutures, and should be passed far around in the posterior vaginal wall, their points of entrance and exit being the same as for the three lower unsecured superficial external sutures in Fig. 14. The second difficulty may be overcome by further denuding a triangular surface in the vaginal sulcus on each side, the base of the triangle corresponding {165} to the line a b, Fig. 12, and its apex being in the vaginal sulcus at a distance corresponding to the degree of relaxation. This increases the length of the lines of union running into the sulci represented by d b and e f, Fig. 14. In the vaginal portion of the wound silk or catgut is preferable to silver, the latter being difficult to remove.

Emmet is entitled to great credit for having given to the profession an operation which brings the posterior vaginal walls up against the anterior more perfectly than any other, and which, being mostly inside of the vagina, is therefore followed by very little of the pain during convalescence which formerly rendered perineorrhaphy one of the most trying operations in gynecology. The operation furthermore has demonstrated the former teachings relative to the direction of perineal rupture[9] and the tissues involved to be incorrect, or at least inadequate.

[Footnote 9: At the meeting of the American Medical Association in June, 1883, the author presented a paper describing the transverse laceration of the perineum and its operative treatment, which was published with illustrations in the transactions by the journal of the Association, Dec. 22, 1883. This communication referred only to the recent rupture and the immediate operation.]

Retroversion.

Retroversion is that position of the uterus in which the fundus is posterior to the axis of the pelvic inlet. If the cervix be in its normal place near the sacrum, retroversion is scarcely possible, because it is prevented by the proximity of the over-arching sacrum. (See Fig. 2.) The first degree of prolapse must therefore precede any considerable backward turning of the uterus. When the cervix has been displaced downward {166} and forward so far that its distance from the sacrum is equal to or greater than the length of the uterus, retroversion to any extent becomes possible. (See Figs. 3 and 16.)

ETIOLOGY AND HISTORY.--From the above it follows that the causes of commencing retroversion must be identical with the causes of the first degree of prolapse. After the puerperium the relaxation of the supports and the weight of the organ may persist, and spontaneous replacement may be prevented by the pressure and weight of the intestines upon the anterior surface. Every act of defecation forces the cervix forward and downward, and the uterus, being in the axis of the vagina, and having therefore little support below, must depend upon the subinvoluted peritoneal suspensory ligaments and pelvic fascia, which are inadequate. This condition is very often induced by abortions, with resulting increased weight and relaxation of the vaginal walls. Local peritonitis and cellulitis may permanently fix the corpus in its retroverted position by cicatricial bands and adhesions.

SYMPTOMS AND COURSE.--The displacement and its complications usually cause bearing-down sensations, a feeling of heaviness in the pelvis, exhaustion upon walking and standing, especially the latter, and constipation. After the puerperium the extreme engorgement of the pelvic organs often produces uterine hemorrhage, which should not be confounded with the returning menstruation. Especially after abortion the hemorrhage often persists for a long time unless cured by treatment. Gradual or sudden replacement may occur spontaneously, or the causes may continue active, and even be enforced by cystocele and rectocele. The displacement may also be complicated by disease and displacement of the ovaries. Organic disease of the uterine walls may induce a superadded retroflexion. The heavy organ may descend along the relaxed subinvoluted vaginal walls even to complete procidentia.

DIAGNOSIS AND PROGNOSIS.--The symptoms outlined in the preceding paragraph indicate the probability of displacement, but the diagnosis depends upon direct examination of the uterus. Conjoined manipulation and the probe will usually show the retroverted organ with the cervix displaced toward the pubes and with the corpus in the hollow of the sacrum. The introduction of the probe is contraindicated by cellulitis and peritonitis. In certain cases of anteflexion, as represented in Fig. 23, the cervix is bent forward in the vaginal axis as in retroversion. The condition is in reality one of retroversion of the cervix with high anteflexion of the corpus, which may usually be detected by careful conjoined examination. The prognosis with treatment is generally favorable both for speedy relief and ultimate recovery.

TREATMENT.--As in descent, the treatment consists in removing cellulitis, peritonitis, and other complications, in the use of pessaries, and in operations on the anterior and posterior vaginal walls if needed. Inasmuch as the treatment corresponds to that of retroflexion, it will be presented under that subject.

Retroflexion.

ETIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.--Retroflexion is that displacement in which the organ is bent backward upon itself. It usually results from, {167} and is associated with, retroversion, but for convenience the double displacement will be termed retroflexion. It may be caused by the great weight of the corpus, the soft flexible state of the uterine walls during and after involution, intra-abdominal forces, downward pressure during defecation, tight clothing, and not commonly by the obstetric bandage.

The ovaries, unless fixed elsewhere by adhesions, are displaced with, and held down on either side of, the corpus, sometimes enlarged from inflammation, often adherent, and always extremely sensitive. Chronic metritis, cellulitis, and peritonitis, with adhesions more or less firm, are usually present, and not infrequently as the result of gonorrhoea, abortion, or injudicious treatment. Peritoneal adhesions between the corpus and the cul-de-sac of Douglas sometimes make replacement impossible. In rare cases the displacement is congenital.

SYMPTOMS AND COURSE.--Among the most pronounced symptoms are profuse uterine catarrh, menstrual disorders, sterility, abortion, weakness, pain in the back, painful defecation, rectal tenesmus, the symptoms of pelvic inflammation, neurasthenia, and other nervous symptoms. The uterine catarrh is due to an effort on the part of the engorged pelvic organs to relieve themselves by an exaggerated secretion of mucus from the uterus, which upon being increased in quantity becomes vitiated in quality, and therefore pathological. Menorrhagia and abortion may also result from congestion. Dysmenorrhoea and sterility result from the {168} general anæmic condition and from the inflammatory complications, and from the obstruction in the uterine canal or in the blood-vessels at the angle of flexure. (See Pathology of Anteflexion.) The rectal symptoms are caused by the pressure of the corpus uteri upon the rectum, which gives the sensation to the patient of an overloaded bowel.

Should pregnancy occur, the rapid growth of the uterus may induce spontaneous reposition at about the fourth month, when the fundus rises out of the pelvis, but if the corpus be incarcerated under the sacral promontory from adhesions or from any other cause, the uterus will, unless manually replaced, relieve itself by abortion.

Abdominal pains, nervous dyspepsia, and neuralgia in distant parts of the body are often present; indeed, the nervous symptoms may be of the most exaggerated character, and may comprise all that is implied by the word hysteria in its most comprehensive signification.

DIAGNOSIS.--Digital touch discloses the cervix low in the pelvis, and the fundus uteri is felt through the posterior vaginal wall in the cul-de-sac of Douglas. Conjoined manipulation with the index finger of the left hand, first in the vagina and then in the rectum, and the right hand over the hypogastric region, will show the size, form, consistency, and location of the uterus, the degree of the flexure, and the difficulty of replacement. An inflammatory exudate or hæmatocele, posterior to the uterus, or a fibroid in the posterior uterine wall, may be mistaken for the retroflexed corpus. The probe will always verify the diagnosis, but if there be great tenderness with fixation in the cul-de-sac of Douglas, treatment should be directed against the inflamed condition, and the final diagnosis made by repeated examinations or after the disappearance of the inflammation. Great and lasting injury is often done in the attempt to complete the diagnosis at the first examination. The presence of a fibroid in the posterior uterine wall with post-uterine inflammation is a serious complication both in diagnosis and treatment. If the rectum be overloaded with fecal matter, the diagnosis should be deferred. The displacement is distinguished from the presence of an ovary or small ovarian tumor in the pouch of Douglas by careful bimanual examination and by the probe.

TREATMENT OF RETROVERSION AND RETROFLEXION.--The objects of treatment are replacement and retention of the uterus. The obstacles to replacement are cellulitis, peritonitis, and fixation of the uterus, and these complications often require weeks, and in severe cases months, of treatment preparatory to replacement. Some of the general therapeutic suggestions under the subject of descent are also applicable to the retro-positions. Rest, massage, careful regulation of the bowels, feeding, and general tonics are essential. For the inflammation small blisters over the inguinal regions frequently repeated, and the daily application of the cotton and glycerin plug to the cervix, and dry cupping over the sacrum, are most efficacious. The glycerin may be combined with alum, tannin, chloral hydrate, or iodoform. Thymoline in small quantities partially destroys the disagreeable iodoform odor. The most useful and essential topical application is the hot-water vaginal douche, but its use will be followed by failure and disappointment if it be applied in the ordinary way. The following is quoted from a paper by the author which was published in the Chicago Medical Gazette, Jan. 1, 1880: {169}

"A satisfactory substitute for the bed-pan may be made as follows: Place two chairs at the side of an ordinary bed with space enough between them to admit a bucket; place a large pillow at the extreme side of the bed nearest the chairs; spread an ordinary rubber sheet over the pillow, so that one end of the sheet may fall into the bucket below in the form of a trough. The douche may then be given with the patient's hips drawn well out over the edge of the bed and resting on the pillow, and with one foot on each chair; the water will then find its way along the rubber trough into the bucket below." The Davidson syringe, which has an interrupted current, is preferable to any of the fountain syringes.

As the tenderness disappears the cotton plugs may be increased in quantity, and thereby made to serve as temporary support for the uterus until a more permanent pessary can be substituted. The sluggish circulation in the pelvis and torpid condition of the bowels may be much relieved by the daily application of the wet pack. A small flannel sheet folded lengthwise to the width of two feet, dipped in very hot water, and dried by passing it through a wringer, is wound about the hips and covered by another dry one. At the end of a half hour, during which time the patient maintains the recumbent position, the sheets are removed. When the tenderness has been sufficiently reduced, gentle attempts at replacement may be made every day or two by conjoined manipulation. The patient's tolerance of manipulation may thus be observed and the way prepared for complete replacement and permanent retention after the subsidence of the inflammation.

In retroversion and retroflexion always replace the uterus before adjusting the pessary, otherwise the instrument will press upon the sensitive uterus, when one of three unfortunate results must occur: (1) The pessary may not be tolerated on account of pain; (2) the pessary may be forced down by pressure from above so near to the vulva that it will fail to do the least good; (3) the uterus, finding it impossible to hold its position against the pessary, instead of taking its proper position will often be bent over it in exaggerated retroflexion, with the cervix between {170} the pessary and the pubes and the body between the pessary and the sacrum, or the whole organ may slip off to one side of the instrument into a malposition more serious than the one for which relief is sought. The safest and most effective method of replacement is by conjoined manipulation, as represented in Figs. 16 and 17. The dotted lines in the former indicate the gradual elevation of the corpus out of the hollow of the sacrum to the pelvic brim, where it may be anteverted by the fingers of the right hand pressed well down behind its posterior wall. During the process of anteversion the index finger of the left hand in the anterior fornix of the vagina presses the cervix back to its place in the hollow of the sacrum, as in Fig. 17. Efficient reposition of the uterus is very often impossible without anæsthesia.

The replacement is not usually accomplished by drawing the fundus forward and pushing the cervix back directly in the median line. In most cases the fundus sweeps around the arc of a circle on the left side of the pelvis, and the cervix on the right. This is owing to the greater frequency of cellulitis on the left side, and consequent shortening of the left broad ligament. After replacement the organ is to be held in position by a suitable pessary.

Bimanual replacement has two great advantages over the more familiar methods of the sound or repositor: first, it is more effective and more {171} permanent; second, the lever action of the sound or repositor, by which the operator may unwittingly use an undue and dangerous amount of force, is avoided in the use of the hands, through which the operation is not only constantly under his control, but also within his appreciation.

Inasmuch as the pessary fulfils its indications by sustaining the pelvic floor, and thereby holding the cervix in the hollow of the sacrum, the same general principles, and in fact the same pessaries, which are applicable to prolapse apply also to retroversion and retroflexion. Indeed, the first step in the genesis of the retro-positions has been shown to be prolapse. The student is therefore referred to the general remarks on the adjustment of pessaries for prolapse.

The operations of elytrorraphy and perineorraphy, especially the latter, already described in the treatment of descent, are often of the utmost importance in the treatment of the posterior displacements, and should therefore be carefully studied in this connection.

In the adjustment of the pessary it is desirable, if possible, to avoid direct pressure upon any part of the uterus. Pessaries designed to prop up the body of the uterus by pressure upon the posterior wall to correct the posterior malpositions, and upon the anterior wall to correct the anterior malpositions, are very liable to induce metritis and perimetritis, and are therefore generally unsafe. In certain cases, however, the vaginal walls, {172} especially the posterior, may be so relaxed from subinvolution and other causes that the instrument, though very long, fails to maintain the cervix in its normal place. Under such conditions a pessary may be required to act directly upon the uterus. The Schultze's sleigh pessary represented in Fig. 19 fulfils this indication. Schultze's figure-of-eight pessary, or a long Albert Smith pessary with its uterine curve made so extreme as to bring the upper part of the instrument in front of the cervix instead of behind, answers the same purpose.

Thomas's retroflexion pessary, with its bulbous upper extremity, is a long narrow instrument of extreme uterine curve. It lifts the uterus very high, and is specially applicable in cases of great relaxation of the pelvic floor and of complicating prolapse of the ovaries (Fig. 21). The bulbous portion is sometimes made of soft rubber.

A properly-adjusted pessary gives to the patient no consciousness of its presence. If the instrument cause pain it should be removed and search made for the tender places; it should then, if possible, be remoulded into such shape that it will not exert pressure upon them. Often a slight indentation at some point will enable the patient to wear it with comfort.

Sometimes when the corpus has been firmly bound back by peritoneal adhesions they may be broken up by very forcible conjoined manipulation under ether, but the operation is dangerous, and should therefore be {173} undertaken only by an expert operator. In place of this operation Lawson Tait has proposed to open the abdomen, break the adhesions, and stitch the fundus uteri to the abdominal wound. This operation in the hands of such an operator as Tait is probably not more dangerous than breaking up firm adhesions by forcible conjoined manipulation.

In certain cases in which replacement is impracticable or impossible on account of inflammation or adhesions a soft rubber ring may be inserted, and will often give decided relief by lifting the uterus and pelvic floor nearer to the health level. In the treatment of all displacements coition should be forbidden or permitted only with great moderation, and the pessary should be kept clean by copious daily applications of the vaginal douche. Every three or four weeks the instrument should be removed and the pelvic organs carefully examined.

It should be urged that no man can safely apply the pessary until he has fully appreciated its indications and contraindications. Few practitioners possess naturally the mechanical skill necessary to its proper adjustment. Of this thousands of unfortunate women bear witness. Its dangers in inefficient hands are in striking contrast with its usefulness when judiciously employed.

Many cases of displacement, both anterior and posterior, are so complicated by prolapsed and adherent ovaries, by advanced disease of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes, and by peritoneal adhesions, that not only {174} replacement, but even palliation, is impossible; then, as a final resort, the activity of the pelvic organs, both physiologically and pathologically, may be put at rest by the removal of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes.

William Alexander of Liverpool has devised an ingenious operation of shortening the round ligaments for the radical cure of descent and of the posterior displacements. He reports twenty-two cases of the operation in his own practice and several more in the practice of other surgeons, with almost uniform success in completely curing the displacements. The operation, although new, gives promise of a brilliant and successful future.

Lateral Versions and Flexions.

The lateral malpositions which often complicate retroversion and retroflexion are usually the result of inflammation in a broad ligament or in the uterus itself, or in both. Their treatment is that of the causative inflammation, and follows the general principles which have been laid down for the treatment of other versions and flexions.

Pathological Anteversion.

Sometimes the physiological angle of flexure becomes obliterated in consequence of chronic metritis, resulting in permanent straightening of the uterus, and the cervix becomes elevated and fixed above, or the corpus depressed and fixed below, the normal level. This constitutes pathological anteversion (Fig. 22).

ETIOLOGY.--The exaggerated anteversion of early pregnancy is physiological, the exaggerated anteversion of the uterus in chronic metritis is pathological. Elevation of the cervix and depression of the corpus may be induced by peritoneal adhesions. Increased weight from a mural fibroid may also depress the corpus.

{175} The SYMPTOMS are due to the pelvic inflammations already mentioned and other complications. The increased weight of the uterus, which is usually hypertrophied from metritis, generally causes a dragging sensation, especially if the organ be also prolapsed. The enlarged corpus occupying the territory of the bladder often induces persistent vesical irritation or even cystitis. Menorrhagia, when present, is the result of the metritis or a fibroid rather than of the displacement per se.

DIAGNOSIS AND PROGNOSIS.--The displacement is recognized by digital touch, which discloses the anterior wall of the uterus parallel to the anterior wall of the vagina, with the fundus close to the symphysis and the cervix elevated. Conjoined examination will show the size, shape, hardness, and degree of fixation. Exaggerated anteversion of the healthy uterus is not necessarily pathological in its results. This is illustrated by the anteversion of early pregnancy. The prognosis is therefore good if the causes can be removed.

TREATMENT.--Inasmuch as exaggerated anteversion is the position taken by the uterus in chronic metritis, it follows that the treatment is often that of chronic metritis. For the treatment of metritis, perimetritis, fibroids, menorrhagia, etc. the reader is referred to the special literature of those subjects. Irritable bladder, which is often a mechanical result of the displacement and enlargement, may sometimes be relieved by means of an Albert Smith or Hodge pessary, which lifts the organ to a higher level away from the bladder. In thus elevating the uterus the {176} anteversion may be rather increased than diminished, which proves that the symptoms were dependent not upon the anteposition, but rather upon descent and antelocation. Should the parts be too sensitive to tolerate the hard-rubber pessary or a flexible rubber ring, the daily application of medicated pledgets of cotton will give support to the uterus and decrease the tenderness until the more permanent instrument can be worn. The numerous anteversion pessaries designed to elevate the corpus by direct pressure on the anterior wall of the uterus generally irritate the organ, and thereby aggravate the inflammatory complications. They are therefore to be used with extreme caution.

Pathological Anteflexion.

DEFINITION.--The normal forward bending of the corpus upon the cervix uteri when the bladder is empty makes an angle of which the approximate physiological limits are between 45° and 90°: the flexure would generally be pathological if less than 45° or more than 90°. Furthermore, if the flexure, whether it be normal or abnormal in extent, does not disappear upon filling the bladder, but remains constant under all conditions, the rigidity makes the flexure pathological. Anteflexion is therefore pathological if the mobility at the angle of flexure is increased or diminished or absent.

{177} ETIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.--Anteflexion may be congenital or acquired. By congenital is meant not defective foetal development, but failure of the immature child uterus to develop at puberty, a failure which usually pertains alike to the uterus, Fallopian tubes, ovaries, and vagina. In congenital anteflexion the uterus is bent upon itself almost double, the body and cervix both pointing in the direction of the pelvic outlet, with the cervix somewhat elongated and situated in the long axis of the vagina. (See Fig. 23.)

Acquired anteflexion may be simply an exaggeration of the normal flexure, due either to increased weight of the corpus from the presence of the uterine fibroid near the fundus or to unequal growth of the uterine walls or to unequal involution. A very frequent cause of anteflexion is thickening of the posterior wall of the uterus from the products of inflammation, and a corresponding atrophy of the anterior wall from prolonged pressure at the angle of flexure. Post-uterine cellulitis and peritonitis involving the utero-sacral ligaments is a frequent and discouraging complication. Sometimes the inflamed ligaments contract and drag the anteflexed uterus upward and backward, where it may be permanently fixed by peritoneal adhesions. (See Fig. 24.)

A constriction of the uterine canal at the point of flexure may, by confining the secretions above, produce inflammation in the body of the uterus, Fallopian tubes, and ovaries analogous to the cystitis, ureteritis, pyelitis, and nephritis which follow stricture of the male urethra. The {178} peri-uterine inflammations, having the relation either of cause or effect of the flexure, often bind the pelvic organs together in a mass of exudate, with resulting failure of nutrition, nerve-irritation, and constant pain, which sometimes render the patient's life miserable and useless.

SYMPTOMS AND COURSE.--The numerous symptoms due to the inflammatory and other complications should not be confounded with those of the displacement. The symptoms of anteflexion are polyuria and dysuria, dysmenorrhoea and sterility.

The vesical symptoms are produced either by the rigidity of the uterine tissue at the angle of flexure, which prevents the body from rising out of the way of the filling bladder, or by the inflammatory shortening of the utero-sacral ligaments, which, by drawing the uterus upward and backward, put the vesico-vaginal wall on the stretch, thereby causing traction upon the neck of the bladder.

The dysmenorrhoea may depend upon the presence of constriction of the uterine canal at the angle of flexure. This causes the blood to accumulate and to coagulate in the body of the uterus, from which it is expelled at intervals by uterine contractions simulating labor-pains. The pain when due to this cause is therefore always very severe just before the passage of a clot. Furthermore, the dysmenorrhoea may be caused by obstruction in the veins at the angle of flexure, which causes intense venous congestion of the entire body of the uterus; pain is then due to the pressure of the swollen vessels upon the nerve-filaments and to a consequent irritable condition of the muscular tissue of the uterus. Sometimes upon the establishment of the flow the uterine canal becomes temporarily straightened; this removes the cause of the vascular obstruction, and together with the flow gives relief.

Sterility is very commonly associated with anteflexion. The fact that dilatation and incision of the constricted canal have frequently been followed by conception has been accepted as proof that the sterility is due to the constrictive obstruction. This mechanical theory is questioned by many, who say that the dilatation cures sterility by straightening the uterus and thereby removing the venous obstruction and the consequent congestion.

DIAGNOSIS.--The educated touch which distinguishes the normal version, flexion, and movements of the uterus will appreciate the anatomical differences between pathological and normal anteflexion. The degree of flexure, the mobility or rigidity, and the size, shape, location, and consistency of the uterus may be ascertained by conjoined manipulation. The presence of post-uterine cellulitis is recognized by the pain caused in dragging the uterus slightly forward and by increased thickness and tenderness in the region of the utero-sacral ligaments, which may be felt by vaginal or rectal touch. Anteflexion is distinguished from a fibroid in the anterior wall of the uterus by the probe. When the diagnosis of anteflexion is obscured by the presence of cellulitis, it is usually better to wait for absorption of the exudate than to subject the patient to needless danger from the probe. Should it be necessary to pass the probe, the danger is decreased by gentle manipulation, which is facilitated by Sims's speculum and the latero-prone position. The common error of mistaking the normal version and flexion of a prolapsed uterus for pathological {179} version and flexion has been exposed in a previous paragraph. (See Etiology and Clinical History of Descent.)

TREATMENT.--If complicating cellulitis or peritonitis exist, in the relation of either cause or effect to the flexure, its removal becomes the prime indication, because unless removed it is a positive contraindication to the more direct treatment of the malposition itself. Chronic metritis, hyperplasia, hypertrophy, and irremovable tumors sometimes render cure impossible. Improvement of the general health, treatment of complications, and palliation then become the only resources.

The direct treatment of pathological anteflexion has for its object the straightening of the uterine canal, which is usually accomplished either by division of the cervix or by dilatation. But before considering the treatment more specifically, it should be remembered that surgical treatment of anteflexion in cases of dysmenorrhoea and sterility is only justifiable when the anteflexion is pathological. To say that most women who suffer from dysmenorrhoea and sterility have anteflexion is only saying that in the majority of such cases the uterus is in its normal position.

The Marion-Sims operation of dividing the cervix is open to two objections: first, its results are apt to be only temporary, in consequence of rapid contraction upon healing of the wound; second, it has frequently been followed by death. Dilatation by means of tents is also transient in its results, and dangerous to life. Both Sims's operation and dilatation by tents have given frequent and serious warnings in the shape of pelvic inflammations, which, if not destructive to life, have been almost as disastrous in their influence upon health.

The following, with some modifications, is an abstract of a valuable contribution[10] by Goodell of Philadelphia, in which he gives positive endorsement to rapid dilatation as proposed by Ellinger and others. The instruments recommended are two Ellinger dilators, which are preferred on account of the parallel action of their blades. The dilatation is commenced with the smaller instrument and completed with the larger, which has powerful blades that do not spring or feather. The light instrument needs only a ratchet in the handle, but the stronger one has a screw which forces the handles together and the blades apart. To prevent injury to the fundus when the instrument is open, the length of the blades is limited to two inches. The larger instrument has a dilating power of one and a half inches, and has a graduated arc in the handles which indicates the divergence of the blades. Goodell's modification of Ellinger's dilators is provided with serrated blades, to prevent them from slipping out of the canal during the process of dilatation.

[Footnote 10: American Journal of Obstetrics, 1884, p. 1179.]

For dysmenorrhoea or sterility due to flexion or stenosis the method of operation is as follows: A suppository containing a grain of the aqueous extract of opium is introduced into the rectum, the patient etherized, and the uterus exposed by Sims's speculum. The cervix is held by a tenaculum, and the smaller dilator is introduced as far as it will go. Upon gently stretching open that portion of the uterine canal which it occupies, the stricture above so yields that when the blades are closed they will pass higher. By repeating this manoeuvre a cervical canal is tunnelled out which before would not admit the finest probe. Should the os {180} externum or cervical canal be too small to admit the instrument, a pair of pointed scissors may be substituted, and by the same opening and closing motions the canal may be prepared for the introduction of the smaller dilator. As soon as the cavity of the uterus has been entered the handles are brought together. This dilator is then withdrawn, the larger one introduced, and its handles slowly screwed together. If the flexure be very marked, the larger instrument after being withdrawn should be introduced with its curve in the opposite direction to that of the flexure, and the final dilatation made with the dilator in this position. But in reversing the curve the operator should take care not to rotate the organ upon its own axis, and not to mistake a twist thus made for a reversal of the flexure; the ether is then withheld, and the instrument allowed to remain in place until the patient begins to flinch, when it is removed. The best time for the dilatation is midway between the monthly periods. In the majority of cases the dilatation should be carried to about one and a quarter inches. The infantile uterus which has failed to develop at puberty has thin, unyielding walls, and should therefore not be dilated more than three-fourths of an inch or an inch. In using the larger instrument it is usually necessary to have the assistant make decided counter-traction with the vulsella forceps to prevent the blades of the dilator from slipping out. The cervix is sometimes lacerated, but not sufficiently to produce unpleasant results.

Goodell's statistics include one hundred and fifty operations of full dilatation under ether, with no fatal result and without serious inflammatory disturbance. As precautions against cellulitis, peritonitis, and metritis the patient should be fortified for the operation with moderate doses of opium and full doses of quinine, and for two or three days after the dilatation this should be continued and supplemented by the application of an ice-bladder over the abdomen.

After forcible dilatation under ether the cervical canal rarely returns to its previously angular or contracted condition. The cervix shortens and widens, and the plasma thrown out thickens and stiffens the uterine walls. In a small minority of cases the operation must be repeated. Dysmenorrhoea or sterility, if dependent solely upon the flexure, is cured by the dilatation. The comparative safety of forcible dilatation in the hands of a skilful and experienced gynecologist may be contrasted with its great danger when undertaken by an operator unacquainted with the special requirements of uterine surgery. Peri-uterine inflammation is a positive contraindication to the operation.

Post-uterine inflammation, which has drawn the anteflexed or anteverted uterus upward and backward by the contraction of the utero-sacral ligaments, often produces traction upon the vesico-vaginal wall and neck of the bladder, with a constant desire to micturate. For the relief of this intractable symptom, which sometimes goes on to cystitis, Emmet has proposed a most satisfactory remedy known as his buttonhole operation of urethrotomy.[11] He makes a longitudinal opening about five-eighths of an inch long through the urethro-vaginal wall, between the meatus and the neck of the bladder, without cutting through either. To prevent the opening from healing together, the margins of the mucous membrane of the urethra are united with fine catgut sutures to the {181} margins of the mucous membrane of the vagina. According to Emmet, the operation relieves irritation due to traction on the neck of the bladder by freeing the pelvic fascia at the fixed point where it converges to its pubic attachment. The operation is equally applicable for the relief of this symptom when due to inflammation in any other part of the pelvis. The same result may be secured, but less satisfactorily, by forcible dilatation of the urethra.

[Footnote 11: Emmet's Principles and Practice of Gynecology, 3d ed., pp. 275 and 761.]

From personal experience the author can testify to the gratifying effects of this operation. Vesical irritation caused by post-uterine inflammation and consequent contraction of the utero-sacral ligaments is often wrongly attributed to the mechanical pressure of the anteflexed fundus uteri upon the bladder, which is manifestly impossible, if the contracted utero-sacral supports hold the entire uterus back away from the bladder.

The various anteflexion and anteversion pessaries which have been devised for the purpose of propping up the corpus are almost useless. Their false reputation depends upon the relief which they frequently give to complicating prolapse, the symptoms of which have been wrongly attributed to anteflexion or anteversion. The same pessaries therefore may be applied as in descent. (See Etiology and Clinical History of Descent.) Intra-uterine stem pessaries designed to straighten the flexed uterus are sometimes effective, and always dangerous.

{182}

DISORDERS OF THE UTERINE FUNCTIONS.

BY J. C. REEVE, M.D.

Menstruation with its disorders is the only subject to be considered under this head. In its monthly recurrence it is most intimately connected with, and dependent upon, ovulation, each menstrual discharge being the sign and evidence of the maturation and expulsion of one ovum or more. This proposition is denied by some, but the evidence adduced against it, while sufficient to show that the two processes may be dissociated, and may sometimes occur independently, is not strong enough to invalidate the truth of the general statement.

Menstruation may be entirely absent, the flow may be excessive, or it may be accompanied by severe pain; and these derangements have been designated from time immemorial as amenorrhoea, menorrhagia, and dysmenorrhoea. The time is long past, however, when these affections could be treated as distinct diseases. Each of them may be caused by influences so various--and, above all, may depend upon pathological conditions so different, and even dissimilar--that the name applied to each is indefinite, and, like the term dropsy, only incites inquiry as to some abnormal condition of which the deranged flow is the symptom. A due appreciation of this fact is of prime importance, because treatment cannot be instituted with expectation of success until the particular form of each derangement has been distinguished.

The great majority of cases of uterine derangement depend upon changes of structure. Those considered purely functional are largely in the minority, and would be still less in number with a more intimate knowledge of pathology or with greater skill in examination. No argument is needed, therefore, to show that a direct and thorough examination of the organs concerned is essential to rational treatment of this class of affections. There are obvious difficulties in the way of such an investigation, different from and far greater than attend the investigation of the diseases of any other organ of the body. With tact and proper demeanor, however, these difficulties can be generally overcome, but in any other than trifling cases, and especially in those continuing for any considerable time, the practitioner will do injustice to himself as well as to his patient if he do not insist upon this indispensable investigation.

A due appreciation of the influence of uterine disorders and diseases upon other and remote parts of the body is necessary to a correct estimate of their importance, and often of great practical value in treatment. Through the sympathetic nervous system pathological conditions of the uterus modify the processes of organic life, and by direct or reflex action {183} affect the cerebro-spinal system in its centre or at any point of its terminal ramifications. That the stomach responds readily to uterine excitations is shown in pregnancy, and uterine disease often causes disorders of the digestive organs the origin of which may not be suspected. Eructations, vomiting, and the various forms of indigestion are not uncommon. The bowels are irregular in action, constipation alternating with diarrhoea, and flatulent distension may occur even to a degree demanding special treatment. Failure of general nutrition and impoverished blood are the consequences of this disturbed digestion; without good blood there is no sound innervation, and the nervous system is soon in such a condition as to respond unduly to even insignificant impressions. Normal menstruation is marked by a nervous erethism which shows itself by irritability, fits of despondency, and exhibitions of temper. There are therefore abundant reasons why nervous diseases should be very frequently seen as a remote effect of uterine disorders.

A very large proportion of these reflex diseases first occur at the period of puberty, many present striking exacerbations at every menstrual period, and some are so closely associated with this function as to be cured only by remedies addressed to it. Headache, neuralgia, hysteria in its varied forms, chorea, catalepsy, epilepsy, and even mania, have been repeatedly shown to have their origin in the sexual organs. The reproach often directed at gynecologists, of a disposition to magnify their specialty, falls pointless before such important facts; and since it is not uncommon for diseases of organs in close proximity to the uterus, as those of the urethra, bladder, and rectum, to be mistaken for or confounded with diseases of the uterus itself, there is abundant warrant for urging the closest scrutiny as to a possible uterine origin of remote diseases, especially those of a nervous character.

Amenorrhoea.

The term amenorrhoea signifies the absence of menstruation. It occurs in two different forms: First, those cases in which menstruation has never occurred--emansio mensium; second, those in which it has disappeared after having been established--suppressio mensium.

The following pathological schedule may assist in the study of the subject. It need scarcely be said that it is not presented as correct in every particular, nor with the idea that the dividing-lines between physiological and pathological conditions can be always determined, but as a convenient guide to follow in the study of the subject:

A. Amenorrhoea (absent menstruation) from a, anatomical conditions: want of development of organs, atresia of passages; b, physiological influences: delayed puberty, idiopathic; c, pathological causes: constitutional diseases, disease of the sexual organs, the cachexiæ. B. Amenorrhoea (secondary or suppressed menstruation): a, anatomo-pathological: atresia of passages, atrophy of organs; b, physiological: pregnancy, nursing, premature change of life; c, pathological: besides those given above--A-c--are psychical influences and exposure or taking cold during menstruation.

{184} Absence or want of due development of some of the sexual organs is not of very infrequent occurrence. The ovaries are very rarely found wanting; they are more often checked in development and present the characteristics of early life. This condition may be the cause of delayed, irregular, or scanty menstruation, making a more or less near approach to amenorrhoea. Absence of the uterus is often combined with absence or with an undeveloped condition of the vagina, but this canal may be perfect and no change of the external organs be present to indicate that the uterus is wanting. It may also exist in a rudimentary form, and may be found corresponding in size and shape to the uterus of any period of early life.

Absence of the ovaries not only causes amenorrhoea, but checks the progress of the bodily development and prevents the sexual changes of puberty. When the ovaries are wanting there is almost always absence of the Fallopian tubes, uterus, and vagina. The symptomatology of absence of the uterus is not generally striking, the lack of menstruation being the principal sign; exceptionally, however, it is otherwise. In some cases where the ovaries are present and the uterus wanting, the most aggravated affections of the nervous system show themselves.

Congenital atresia of the genital canal may occur in any part of its course. Imperforate hymen is the most frequent as it is the least dangerous form, being more than twice as common as atresia of the vagina and three times as frequent as that of the cervix uteri. The vagina may be extremely small in calibre, closed in part or the whole of its course, or only a fibrous cord indicate where it should be. The uterus may be closed at the internal or external os; the latter is the more frequent. An occlusion at one point does not preclude the existence of other closures higher up. The effect of a closed canal with a recurring secretion above is evident, and gives rise to a well-marked class of cases. The organs above become distended, and the distension increases until an opening is made by art or the retained fluid bursts a passage for escape. This may occur outwardly with immediate relief and cure, or into the peritoneal cavity, causing speedy death. The time at which the uterus may be expected to give way under such distension cannot be stated, as the power of resistance of the organ differs and the amount of secretion each month may vary widely. Scanzoni in one case evacuated eight pounds of blood, the result of seven months' accumulation, and found the uterine wall as thin as paper. Bernutz states that the average time before interference is necessary is three or four years, and gives a case first operated upon in the tenth year of its course.

Menstrual retention is not at first indicated by pronounced symptoms. Suspicion of the nature of the case may be first excited by the severity of those symptoms which at every period announce the approach of menstruation and known as the menstrual molimen. As distension increases these become extreme, with rectal and vesical tenesmus and severe uterine colic. The nervous system sympathizes, as with all menstrual derangements, and there may be rigor, fainting, or even convulsions.

Whenever a patient presents such symptoms an examination should be insisted upon. It will generally reveal a smooth, soft, and fluctuating tumor, projecting externally if the case be one of imperforate hymen, or higher up if the vagina be occluded. If the uterus has become distended, {185} there will be a round, smooth, elastic tumor above the pubes. Diagnosis will be more or less difficult according to the seat of the obstruction. Cases of imperforate hymen may be readily diagnosed by sight, if touch and the history are not sufficient. When the occlusion is deeper, the patient should be placed under the influence of an anæsthetic. By one finger in the rectum and the thumb in the vagina, and a sound in the bladder, the seat and extent of the obstruction may be determined. Should it be necessary, the urethra may be dilated and a finger passed into the bladder in order to make a diagnosis. Rectal exploration is of great assistance in discovering the uterine enlargement and its character. Scanzoni calls attention to the difference in the cervix when the atresia is at the internal or external os. In the latter case the cervix will be obliterated; in the former, it will be unchanged. With a perfect vagina and a cervix of this character retention may be taken for an early pregnancy, especially as it is not uncommon for sympathetic mammary symptoms and gastric troubles to be present. Time will demonstrate the nature of the case if a diagnosis cannot be made at once.

The age at which the menstrual flow is established varies greatly. The average age of puberty in this country, as appears from Emmet's tables made up of 2330 cases, is 14.23 years, and these are believed to be the only American statistics. A close correspondence may be noted between this and the statistics of the four largest cities of France, which give 14.26 as the average. But that it is not unusual for the appearance of menstruation to be delayed is shown by the fact that of the above 2330 cases, 288 only menstruated at sixteen years and 254 more between that age and twenty-three. The circumstances which may influence, within physiological limits, the appearance of menstruation should be considered in connection with cases of this kind. Climate and social position are the principal ones. The epoch of puberty descends in the scale of age in proportion to the average height of the temperature of various countries, and vice versâ. Social position and city life show a marked effect in hastening puberty as compared with the simpler manners and plainer life of rural populations. It amounts to an average of something over a year, and is explained by the influence of enervating and luxurious habits, of light reading and the drama, the chief subject of both being the grand passion, but especially of a freer intercourse between, and the co-education of, the sexes, and the greater extent to which music is cultivated and enjoyed.

Among pathological conditions giving rise to amenorrhoea it would seem that disease of the ovaries should occupy the first rank in frequency and importance. The reverse is the truth. The ovaries are rarely inflamed, and when so amenorrhoea is not always the result. They are frequently the seat of cystic degeneration, producing tumors of large size, yet so long as but a small portion of one of the organs remains unaffected Graäfian vesicles may still be furnished and menstruation continue. It is by the influence of remote pathological conditions that the menstrual flow is most frequently restrained, and especially by those general affections known as cachexiæ, all of which exhibit marked depression and low grade of vital power and activity, if not more pronounced pathological processes. Chlorosis, the relations of which to menstruation are intimate, and which seems to be sometimes the offspring of {186} amenorrhoea, exerts a marked retarding influence, amounting to an average of one year and a half. The scrofulous cachexia is still more potent: Scanzoni states that of 31 well-marked cases, in 19 menstruation did not occur until the twenty-first year.

Amenorrhoea which is the result of pulmonary tubercular disease comes frequently under observation. It may occur at a very early period of the disease, before there is any great amount of deposit in the lungs, when it is rather the expression of want of vital force than of the exhausting effect of the disease. Under these circumstances it is only to the laity a subject of serious consideration; to the physician it is but a symptom.

The suppression as well as the absence of menstruation may be caused by atresia of the passages, this form differing from the congenital only etiologically, and in the fact that the flow has been once established. The acquired atresiæ are mostly the result of violent inflammations or traumatic influences. The vulva and vagina, or either, may be closed from sloughing after difficult labors or gangrene following the septic fevers. Occlusion of the cervix uteri may follow labor or amputation of the part, but a far more frequent cause is the application of severe caustics, happily less frequent now than formerly. Lawson Tait says he has never met with atresia of this part from any other cause.

The mode of diagnosis has already been given, and in regard to symptomatology there is only to be noted the statement of Bernutz, that there is far greater intolerance of retention from acquired than from congenital atresia.

Atrophy of the uterus is a normal process after the menopause, but it sometimes occurs much earlier in life, and then causes scanty and irregular menstruation or amenorrhoea. Attention was first called to this condition by Simpson as a process sometimes following parturition under the name of super-involution. Several labors in rapid succession have been stated to be a cause, but Simpson and Courty both give a case after a single birth. Uterine atrophy may also result from the pressure of tumors, and it has been observed in paraplegias the result of defective innervation.

The deranged menstruation is the one prominent symptom of this condition, and a diagnosis is to be made by exploration. The cervix is found small and the body light when lifted on the finger. Bimanual examination and the introduction of the sound will reveal the true condition of the organ. The latter process should be cautiously conducted on account of a frequent change of texture in the uterine walls which allows the instrument to pass through them with the use of but very little force.

Amenorrhoea is physiological during nursing and pregnancy. The former needs no attention, the latter only in regard to diagnosis. A sudden cessation of menstruation, the patient presenting all the appearances of good health, should immediately excite suspicion as to the nature of the cause. It needs but little experience to distinguish and manage these cases in the lower social ranks. The case is different, however, in a family of good position, with an anxious mother urgent for active measures, where no suspicions will be tolerated and the imputation of possible pregnancy be warmly resented. Time is here the sure ally of the physician, and an examination should be deferred until such a period {187} has been reached that pregnancy can be positively negatived or determined.

The influence of acute diseases in suppressing menstruation is not marked. During convalescence from them the flow frequently ceases from general debility. All chronic diseases depressing and exhausting in nature cause suppression, as albuminuria, cirrhosis, and cancer. Tuberculosis is as fruitful in interrupting the return as in preventing the appearance of the flow, and suppression from this cause is very frequent. Under impaired nutrition and depressed powers vital force is engaged wholly in maintaining existence; there is none for any function relating to the propagation of the species. In this class the disappearance is gradual; the flow becomes scanty and irregular in recurrence, and finally ceases. This form of amenorrhoea differs in no material point from the similar class already considered; it is but a symptom of disease of some vital organ or of some general abnormal condition.

Suppression from psychical influences is not at all uncommon. Fright, grief, bad news, sudden or prolonged anxiety, frequently cause this disturbance of function. The mental impression need not be very profound. Amenorrhoea is a common event with girls who go away from home to boarding-school. In these cases it is not probable that there is any pathological condition of the sexual organs; a change in their innervation is a phrase which will best serve to explain the origin of the derangement or to express our ignorance. The diagnosis of this form may be a matter of deep interest when it occurs directly after marriage, as it not infrequently does, and gives ground for the belief that pregnancy has occurred. Still more important is it when the suppression follows illicit intercourse, the fear of pregnancy then exerting a powerful emotional influence. Some cases are on record, and the writer has met with two: in both the function resumed its course after a time without remedies.

Exposure to storm, getting the feet wet, and the sudden application of cold to the genitals frequently cause suppression. All the conditions, however, are not well understood. The bathing- and fishing-women of Europe are said to ply their vocation without reference to menstruation, and to suffer no inconvenience. In these cases the increased flow of blood to the pelvic organs oversteps the narrow line which separates physiological from pathological congestion, and may even pass on to inflammation.

The SYMPTOMS are well marked--at first, local, as severe backache, increased heat and pressure in the pelvic region, discomfort passing on to pain, even uterine colic. If the impression be severe enough to affect the general system, there will be febrile action more or less intense, and various nervous symptoms, spasmodic or convulsive.

The therapeutics of amenorrhoea must be directed in accordance with the conditions which cause it. But the strictly scientific method cannot be followed at the outset. This method presupposes a direct examination of the organs as the first step. For obvious reasons this must be deferred until special symptoms show its necessity. For treatment the cases may be classified, in some instances according to the schedule, but more frequently according to the cause or leading features, and very generally without reference to whether there is absence merely or suppression of the function.

In amenorrhoea from atresia the measures of relief will be purely {188} surgical; the treatment, therefore, does not fall within the scope of this article.

The physician is frequently consulted in cases where menstruation has occurred once or twice, perhaps at long intervals, and not appearing regularly the fears of friends are excited. This is the normal course of establishment in a large proportion of cases. Time and assurance and regimen are alone needed, provided there is no evidence of deteriorated health. Absence of the function alone does not demand treatment--a fact which should be kept steadily in mind.

In a still larger class of cases the amenorrhoea depends upon, and is the direct result of, some pronounced cachectic condition, as chlorosis, scrofula, or a more or less active tubercular disease of the lungs. The treatment of this class resolves itself into that of the disease causing the derangement, and the reader is referred to the articles on the corresponding subjects.

The cases requiring more direct consideration therapeutically are those closely allied to the preceding, in which delay in appearance depends upon want of development of the body or general feebleness of constitution, or those in which absence follows and continues unduly after some severe disease. In all these cases the treatment is to be indirect rather than direct. The absent function is to be restored by improving nutrition, by increasing bodily vigor, and by using every means to establish the general health on a firm basis. Measures for this purpose should be addressed to every particular of the habits, occupation, and surroundings of the patient. They do not differ from those of a general tonic course, but in some particulars a special influence may be exerted upon the function at fault. The clothing should be warm, especially about the pelvis and lower extremities, due care of the feet being impressed in proportion to the universal neglect shown by girls and women in regard to these important parts of the person. The diet should be of plain, wholesome, substantial food, and in many cases one of the lighter wines may be added to the principal meal of the day with decided advantage. Gymnastics may be prescribed, but outdoor life should be urged, with horseback riding as the very best mode of exercise for promoting the flow. A change of air and scene exerts a well-known and powerful influence in improving nutrition and modifying vital actions. It should be rather from the city to the country for these cases. Special advantages may be derived from a residence at the seaside on account of the beneficial effects of surf-bathing. A scientifically-conducted hydropathic establishment is very desirable for its regular hours, well-ordered diet, and treatment by baths and douches. Or a watering-place may be preferred where a chalybeate water may exert a special influence in addition to those of moderate indulgence in the gayety and amusement of such a place.

Inquiry as to school-life and educational work should never be omitted. The general mode of education of girls is faulty in the extreme. No attention is paid to the great change of puberty, which amounts to a revolution in the economy, and instead of aiding the vital forces drawn upon for effecting this change, they are still further depressed by sedentary life in close rooms or strongly urged in another direction. No two leading organs of the body can be pushed in development at the same time with impunity. There is no exception here: either the brain and nervous {189} system or the sexual organs will suffer. In this direction is often found a potent cause of all the forms of uterine derangement--a fact which cannot have escaped the observation of every physician. The writer has always urged an entire break in the school-life of girls of at least one year's duration at the time when signs of puberty begin to manifest themselves; and this period is too short rather than too long.

Tonics should supplement these regiminal measures. They may be hæmatic, stomachic, and nervous--either or all. There is a chain of diseased actions, and it may be attacked at any of its links. Iron stands at the head of the list. It is not only an hæmatic tonic, and in proper conditions a promoter of digestion, but decidedly promotes pelvic congestion, and has therefore an emmenagogue action. The forms at command are so numerous as to meet the requirements of any case or to satisfy any fancy. The standard preparations, as a rule, deserve the preference over more modern ones, in which efficacy is often sacrificed to elegance. Among the best are those which contain the remedy in a nascent state, as the compound mixture or the compound pills of iron of the Pharmacopoeia. Dialyzed iron, the tincture of the chloride, and the pyrophosphate are reliable, while the addition of manganese, as in the syrup of the iodide of iron and manganese, is believed by some to increase the efficacy. With iron may be combined nux vomica or strychnia and quinia. In large sections of our country malaria is a constantly-acting depressant of vital force, and the latter medicine may be given for a time with a free hand, and may be followed by or combined with arsenic to great advantage.

Constipation is almost universally present in women. It deserves especial consideration in treating all disorders of the sexual organs. When attention to habits and appropriate laxative food, as fruits, oatmeal, Indian meal, cracked wheat, and salads, do not suffice, resort must be had to enemata or drugs. Aloes has always had a reputation of special virtue in amenorrhoea which is doubtless well founded. In pill form it may be combined with any or all the other medicines. Pills of aloin, one-fifth or one-third of a grain, have the advantage of very small bulk.

Before considering more direct measures for establishing menstruation it may be well to recall to mind the two elements of the function--ovulation and the uterine flow. The first, the prime factor, we can not influence by any medicines nor by any mode of treatment except, perhaps, by electricity. Observation of animals shows that mere proximity of the male influences it plainly, but this only indicates a line along which we cannot prescribe. An opinion may, however, be asked in regard to the propriety or advisability of marriage for a woman who has never menstruated. In such case no advice should be given until after a thorough local examination, and its tenor will then be in accord with the condition of the organs. With such atresia or absence of organs as not to permit sexual intercourse marriage should be positively negatived. In such cases as those of partially-developed or absent uterus the facts should be laid before the parties interested and the decision referred to them. In the former class of cases some hopes of improvement may be entertained.

The second factor of menstruation, the flow, we can influence by such measures as cause a more or less intense pelvic congestion. The ovaries sharing in this congestion, it is not impossible that ovulation is in some {190} degree also promoted, but it can be only to a minor degree and when the ovaries are in a favorable condition. The uterus is the principal organ to be affected, and to it the most of these measures are addressed.

Direct treatment for the establishment of menstruation should be first of a character rather to solicit than to force the flow. These measures act best where, the general health having been restored, the flow does not appear, but the premonitory symptoms are present. Rest in bed, warmth to the pelvic region by poultices or other means, and hot drinks, are to be prescribed; among the latter infusions of pennyroyal, some of the mints, tansy, and cotton-root have a high domestic reputation and should be preferred. Hot pediluvia or hot sitz-baths, prolonged to twenty or thirty minutes, may be taken at bedtime. These may be rendered sufficiently stimulating to irritate the skin by the addition of mustard. More active measures are stimulating enemata and vaginal injections--for the former ten grains of aloes in mucilage, and for the latter liquor ammonia in milk, fluidrachm j-pint j, gradually increasing the strength to production of slight leucorrhoea. Both these have the endorsement of high authority.

Such measures should be used or plied more assiduously about the period, when that is known. During the interval a tonic course is almost always required, and a powerful local influence can be exerted by cold sitz-baths of brief duration, say one or two minutes, once daily, followed by vigorous rubbing with a coarse towel or a flesh-brush.

There are a few drugs known as emmenagogues from the reputation they have of promoting the menstrual flow. They all are powerful stimulants or irritants, and as they are also nearly all abortifacients, their reputation is probably well founded. Modern physiology, by exploding the doctrine of peccant humors to be carried off by menstruation, and by establishing the doctrine of ovulation, has greatly diminished their importance, while the varied conditions and causes of amenorrhoea already given show at a glance how restricted is the field for their administration. To give them when the anatomical conditions are unknown is blind work; to force a function relating to reproduction when the general system is struggling for existence is folly; and to goad diseased organs with special stimulants is certain to do injury. Now and then, however, special stimulants of this class and of the class next to be considered are required. There are some cases which fail to respond to the measures already detailed; there are others, generally recognized by writers, when menstruation is absent without any deterioration of health, known as cases of sexual atony or torpor; and others in which the flow fails or disappears earlier than the usual age. In these latter atrophy of the ovaries may be suspected, but cannot be verified during life, and treatment should be faithfully continued so long as there is reasonable probability of success. One case occurred in the experience of the writer in which the menses appeared occasionally during two years, each time apparently brought on by special stimulants, but ceased at thirty-two, the general health remaining excellent.

The principal emmenagogue drugs heretofore relied on, besides iron, are saffron, apiol, rue, and savin. The first, from impurity and costliness, is rarely prescribed, yet Trousseau says it is a fact of public notoriety that women engaged in picking saffron suffer from frequent attacks of uterine hemorrhage. Apiol may be given in capsules in doses of five or six {191} drops twice daily for a week before the expected flow, or fifteen drops may be administered in the course of the few hours immediately preceding. The oils of savin and rue are generally prescribed in doses of minim ij-v, three times daily. Ergot and iodine figure sometimes as emmenagogues. The efficacy of the former is denied by very high authority. The latter was esteemed very highly by Trousseau. Its influence upon the scrofulous constitution may possibly explain its action in promoting menstruation.

The permanganate of potassium is a recent addition to emmenagogues, and the testimony in its favor is already sufficient to make it probable that it is the most efficient of the list. The indications for its use are want of action or atony of the organs. It should be administered during a few days or a week preceding the time for menstruation, in doses of from two to four grains three times daily; or two grains three times daily may be administered during the whole month. The union of its elements is but feeble, so that in pills as ordinarily made it would be very likely to undergo decomposition, while in solution it is unpleasant. Compressed tablets of the pure drug are now placed at command of the profession, and are an unexceptionable form for administration. The best time for taking the medicine is toward the close of the digestive process, and each dose should be followed by drinking at least a wineglassful of water. Pain in the stomach has been sometimes observed even when every precaution has been taken. The liability of the remedy to decomposition and its irritating powers are objections to it, but the testimony in favor of its power to bring on or promote the menstrual flow is at present very strong.

More decided measures of local stimulation than those already given may be resorted to, and are far more reliable than drugs. They are--tents, cupping the uterus, and electricity. A sea-tangle or tupelo tent may be kept in the uterus over night just previous to the time of the flow. In cases where stimulation rather than dilatation is needed a tent of slippery-elm bark may be used. Thomas recommends a rubber exhauster for cupping the cervix uteri. Simpson fashioned one for acting on the lining membrane of the body. These measures are most likely to be efficacious just before an expected period.

Electricity is the most reliable emmenagogue, and has such an amount of testimony in its favor as not to permit a doubt as to its value. It is the only direct uterine or menstrual stimulant except permanganate of potassium. Statical electricity is now but little used, although Golding-Bird published striking instances of its efficacy in amenorrhoea at an early day in its therapeutic history. Faradization is now most frequently resorted to. One pole is to be applied to the sacrum and the other above the pubes or over either ovary. The internal application of the current is much more powerful as well as less painful. It is administered by applying a cup-shaped electrode to the cervix, or by introducing an insulated sound into the uterus, the other electrode being external as before. The séances should be repeated every second or third day, and should be more frequent just before the periods when their time is known. Beard and Rockwell insist that general electrization should be administered at the same time, and Mann passes the constant current through the organs during the intervals and the faradic at the periods. Simpson originated {192} a galvanic intra-uterine pessary, which Thomas has modified. It is doubtful whether the feeble current generated by these instruments produces any effect, or whether they act simply as mechanical irritants. When they are used, it should be borne in mind that there is eminent and high authority against the use of intra-uterine pessaries of any kind, and that all agree that a patient to whom one is applied should be kept under careful observation.

It must be stated that good results have been obtained with this class of local remedies in cases which would seem extremely unpromising--even in those in which amenorrhoea depends upon partially-developed organs. There is most positive testimony of the highest character as to good effects obtained in increasing development and promoting the flow.

Cases of acute suppression are to be treated by rest in bed, warmth locally by baths and applications, and hot drinks, as already detailed. Steaming the lower part of the body by placing the patient over the vapor arising from aromatic herbs upon which boiling water has been poured is a remedy which dates back to Hippocrates. Early in the case a drink of spirituous liquor, taken hot, is often efficacious. If, however, there is febrile action, diaphoretics should be administered, such as the liquor ammonii acetatis with spirits of nitrous ether, and aconite if required. Dry or wet cupping may be used if there is evidence of intense uterine congestion. Should internal metritis or inflammation of some pelvic organ result from acute suppression, the treatment will be that for the disease thus caused. If efforts to restore the suppressed flow do not prove speedily successful, special measures should be postponed until the next period, the general health meantime receiving due attention. At the return of the next period such of the remedies for amenorrhoea should be administered as may seem best adapted to the case, considered as to cause, condition of the organs, or constitution of the patient.

Vicarious menstruation is so closely allied to amenorrhoea as to demand some consideration here. The term is applied to a sanguineous flow, recurring at regular intervals, from some organ or part of the body other than the uterus. This flow has taken place from almost every organ or part of the body; most frequently, however, it has been from some mucous membrane, a wound, scar, or some part which by structure is favorable to the exit of blood. Amenorrhoea is frequently present, and is sometimes followed by acute suppression. Puech found 11 cases attended by vaginal atresia congenital, and in 42 others the uterus was absent or but partially developed. The treatment does not differ from that of amenorrhoea. While measures are used to restore normal menstruation, active repression of the abnormal flow should not be attempted, unless the organ from which it proceeds is one likely to be injured by its continuance.

Dysmenorrhoea.

Dysmenorrhoea, according to derivation, signifies a monthly flow with labor or difficulty; its modern synonym is painful menstruation.

In but a very small proportion of women is menstruation painless. Not only general and local distress attends it, but more or less pain. {193} When the suffering reaches such a degree as to demand relief, the case is one of dysmenorrhoea. In such cases the period generally commences with a more pronounced molimen than ordinary; as it progresses pain makes its appearance and gradually increases in severity. Its seat is the pelvic region, the back and loins, and down the thighs. It may be paroxysmal or continuous; in some cases the flow is accompanied by expulsive efforts like those of labor. The pain may last during the whole period, or relax very much, or even cease as soon as the flow is freely established. In degree it may reach any height, often causing the severest agony, taxing the powers of endurance to the utmost, and requiring the most energetic measures for relief.

The organs in proximity to the uterus, partaking as they do of the menstrual congestion, are also markedly affected. There is rectal tenesmus, and on the part of the bladder frequent micturition and dysuria. Remote organs are influenced either directly or by sympathy. The breasts become tumefied and tender. There is flatulence, nausea, or even vomiting. The nervous system, during normal menstruation in a state of erethism, responds readily to the painful impressions, and presents symptoms of the most varied character and degree, amounting even to general convulsions.

Attacks of severe pain recurring at short intervals cannot but exert a powerful deleterious influence upon the general health. Digestion is interfered with, nutrition and sanguification are imperfectly performed, and there is a continuous chain of deranged function. The results to the nervous system, indirect and direct, and sometimes also from the measures of relief resorted to, are most deplorable. From every point of view this class of cases presents the strongest claims for relief.

The discharge in dysmenorrhoea varies very widely in amount and character. It may be so scanty as to border on amenorrhoea or so profuse as to be menorrhagic. It may be more or less fluid than usual. The expulsion of clots is a frequent feature, and the size and shape of these sometimes give indications of value. Like other uterine derangements, dysmenorrhoea is not a disease per se, but a symptom of some pathological condition the exact nature of which is to be ascertained whenever possible. Cases may be classified as follows: I., Obstructive or mechanical; II., congestive; III., neuralgic; IV., membranous. It cannot be too distinctly kept in view that this classification, like many others, cannot be rigidly followed. The dividing-lines are sometimes but faintly drawn by nature; some cases present the features of more than one class; some by natural progress pass from one class into another. Based upon leading clinical features, this classification will assist in the study of the subject, facilitate diagnosis, and aid in directing therapeutic measures.

Two classes given by some authorities are not included in the above classification. They are spasmodic and ovarian dysmenorrhoea. If by the former is implied painful contractions of the uterus during menstruation, the cases fall into the first class given above, the obstructive; and if irregular nervous action is implied, they belong to the third, the neuralgic. The term ovarian has been applied to those cases in which an abnormal condition of the ovaries exists, such as inflammation, enlargement, or dislocation. Such conditions are not easily ascertained during life; if ascertained, the fact throws light on the etiology of the case; but for {194} treatment the case will range itself, according to the clinical features it presents, among those in which the vascular or the neurotic element predominates.

Obstructive or mechanical dysmenorrhoea is that form in which some impediment exists to the free escape of the menstrual discharge. The genital canal presents no exception to the general rule that when an excretory channel is obstructed violent and painful expulsive efforts are excited.

The causes which give rise to the obstruction are various. Among them are the following: fibroid tumors of the uterus distorting, and polypi obstructing, its cavity or neck; stenosis of the cervical canal, either congenital or acquired, the latter often the result of the injudicious use of strong caustics; a long and conical cervix; a contracted os, sometimes so small as to be justly termed the pinhole os; versions and flexions of the uterus.

The seat of obstruction is almost always uterine, but may be in the vagina or at its entrance. There is much difference of opinion as to the relative frequency of occurrence of obstruction at the internal or external orifice of the cervix.

The pain in this form of dysmenorrhoea generally does not precede the flow. In character it is sometimes like colic, but its leading feature is expulsive effort. It occasionally so nearly resembles abortion as to require care to distinguish between them. It is frequently intermittent, presenting intervals of complete relief. In severity it varies widely. In some cases the patient assumes and maintains a certain position which she has learned affords her some relief. This indicates with great probability uterine distortion from fibroid tumor. The writer has met with a marked instance of this kind.

The flow is more irregular in this than in other forms. It is sometimes extruded drop by drop; more often it appears in gushes, the fluid accumulating and distending the uterus until expulsive efforts are excited. Clots are often thrown off under these circumstances in shape and size corresponding to the cavity of the uterus.

Absence of prodromata, presence of the fluid being necessary to excite the pain, the intermittent and especially the expulsive character of the pain, and the kind of clots, indicate the nature of the case. A certain diagnosis, however, rests alone on physical examination. This should be by the touch, bimanual and rectal, and the sound. Sometimes additional aid will be derived from the speculum. By touch the form, size, shape, and direction of the cervix are ascertained, and its relations to the body of the uterus. The sound will give evidence as to the patency and direction of the cervical canal and uterine cavity.

A diagnosis of obstructive dysmenorrhoea should not be rejected because the patient occasionally passes a period without pain. In the male an enlarged prostate may for a long time interfere but little with micturition, and then all at once completely obstruct the flow of urine. A diagnosis cannot be based alone upon the condition of the cervical canal as found during the intermenstrual period. Two elements are to be considered, each of which may, and doubtless often does, play a part: tumefaction from the congestion attendant on the process, and spasm. The latter, caused by reflex action excited by irritation in the body of the uterus, assumes a leading position with those who claim that obstruction is the {195} sole cause of dysmenorrhoea. That it plays an active part in many cases cannot be doubted; that it is a necessary condition of even spasmodic dysmenorrhoea is disproved by the positive statement of Matthews Duncan, that in some cases he could pass a sound freely into the uterus during the paroxysms.

A due estimate of the part which a uterine flexion plays in producing the dysmenorrhoea is important, but very difficult. Theoretically, the narrowing of the canal at the point of flexion should account for the symptoms, but experience does not accord with theory. All cases of flexion are not accompanied by dysmenorrhoea, and when so accompanied removal of the deformity does not always cure. Siredey in 52 observations found only 22 cases of dysmenorrhoea. Emmet's carefully-prepared tables show that in nearly 50 per cent. of anteflexions menstruation is painless. The conditions necessary seem to be extreme flexion, producing an acute angle. In less-pronounced cases it is maintained by many that the flexion is an unimportant factor, and that the dysmenorrhoea depends upon secondary conditions produced by it, as endometritis and congestion. The problem is difficult, and each individual case requires careful study. The facts indicate that there is much in the pathology of this form of disease not yet fully understood.

Congestive dysmenorrhoea depends upon an advance of the menstrual congestion beyond the physiological limits. In these cases the patient generally suffers for a few days before the period from a sense of fulness, weight, and heat in the back and pelvic region. Pain follows, is more or less severe, and varies somewhat in character, although generally dull and heavy. The hypogastric region usually becomes distended, and is sometimes very tender to the touch over the ovaries, "especially on the left side, without any reason for the difference being known." After a longer or shorter duration of these symptoms the flow appears, and this is often, especially if free, followed by an amelioration of the pain. In many cases, however, there is no remission of the suffering upon the discharge occurring. Not infrequently the general circulation is affected, the face is flushed, the skin hot, and there is more or less fever.

The flow may vary widely as to quantity. It is often at first and for a time more profuse than normal. Leucorrhoea frequently precedes and follows it, persisting during the entire interval. During that time also the patient suffers much from backache and bearing down, with difficulty of walking or of remaining on her feet.

Upon examination the vagina is found hot and tumefied, and increased arterial action is evident to the touch. The uterus is tender, enlarged, and heavier than usual. In cases associated with or dependent upon chronic inflammation or areolar hyperplasia the increase of size of the uterus during menstruation is marked. The sound may be used to determine the amount of enlargement and also the amount of tenderness. In cases dependent on endometritis touching the interior of the organ causes severe pain. Dyspareunia is frequently a symptom in this class of cases.

The conditions upon which congestive dysmenorrhoea depends are various, and may be either general or local or both combined. Plethora is rare in females, and local congestions are much more frequently dependent upon anæmia, the abnormal condition of the blood favoring them {196} directly and also indirectly by its effect on the nervous system. In past times gout and rheumatism were considered to act frequently as the cause of dysmenorrhoea. They have almost disappeared from view since the era of direct examination began. Malaria, however, as a possible cause or a powerful factor should never be overlooked in regions where it prevails. The sexual instinct plays an important rôle; enforced abstinence, especially when suddenly brought about, and excess, being alike effective etiological factors. Young widows and prostitutes are both subject to this form of disease.

The local causes are numerous. Pelvic inflammations, as cellulitis or pelvic peritonitis, give rise to the disease. Affections of the uterus are frequent causes; displacements, as retroversion or prolapsus; and inflammation, either parenchymatous or of the endometrium. Quite a moderate grade of inflammation, as found during the interval, may, under the increased congestion of menstruation, become extreme. Many cases doubtless depend upon an ovarian influence even when no affection of these organs can be made out. Scanzoni hazards the theory that the maturation of Graäfian vesicles lying deeper than usual in the stroma of the ovary is one cause of this form of dysmenorrhoea.

In neuralgic dysmenorrhoea the neurotic element preponderates. The nerves play a part corresponding to that of the vessels in the congestive form. In some cases of this class no organic lesions can be discovered, and they are then termed idiopathic.

This form of dysmenorrhoea depends upon either a peculiar condition of the general nervous system or upon hyperæsthesia of the sexual system, or both combined. Either or both may have been inherited or acquired. It is frequent in subjects of the hysterical temperament, and in those presenting that preponderance of the nervous system so often seen as the result of over-refinement, luxury, habits of idleness, and other violations of hygienic law. Those subject to it often suffer from severe headaches, neuralgia, and other nervous affections. It is often caused by anæmia or chlorosis. Sexual influences, psychical or physical, and especially those that excite without satisfying, are sometimes efficient causes. Ovarian influence is often an important factor; some authorities designate all those cases in which no anatomical change can be found, ovarian. The prodromata of this form are very apt to be some of those nervous attacks to which such patients are liable, as headache or neuralgia, and they may be psychical, as aberration of temper, undue irritability, or tendency to melancholy. In character the pain is generally stated to be more acute than in the other forms. It is subject to great and sudden alternations. In acuteness and irregularity it often justifies the term spasmodic. From these characters and from the absence of anatomical change a differential diagnosis may be made. As in this form the most marked nervous symptoms are witnessed, so are also the most pronounced complications on the part of the general nervous system. They are often hysterical in character, but may be of every kind and degree, even to general convulsions, and mental aberration is sometimes a complication or result.

Membranous dysmenorrhoea is characterized by the expulsion at the menstrual periods of organized membrane, either as a whole or in pieces. In the former case it is like a cast of the interior surface of the {197} uterus. The expulsion of this membrane is accompanied by pain, often of the most severe character. The pain presents well-marked features; it is markedly expulsive, identical with that of the obstructive form, closely resembling an abortion, to which the membrane adds an additional element of similarity. This pain and these expulsive efforts may continue twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four hours, and then cease, to be renewed only at the next period.

This form of disease is rare--so rare that observers having a large field of observation may never meet with over half a dozen cases. In regard to many points very diverse views are held, and the limits of a practical work do not permit even a statement of all of them. The nature of the membrane is one of these points too important to pass over. When thrown off entire, its internal surface is smooth and marked by the openings of the utricular glands; its external or uterine face is rough and villous. It presents the exact shape of the interior of the uterus, with openings corresponding to the Fallopian tubes and the os. It is impossible to escape the conviction that this membrane is the lining membrane of the uterus, thrown off as a whole, instead of by gradual melting down of its superficial layers, as in normal menstruation. The microscope sustains this view, and this is the generally received opinion; yet that the membrane is not always such is testified by competent observers from observations with the same instrument. It seems probable that this disputed point will be settled, as have been so many others in medicine, in favor of both parties. Siredey suggests the possibility of different kinds of membrane in these cases, while Barnes boldly states this as a fact.

Various theories have been advanced to account for the formation of the membrane. An abnormal course of conception, a changed ovarian influence, a peculiar endometritis, have been from time to time favorite terms in which to express our ignorance. Only in regard to the first has unanimity been obtained. That the membrane is always a product of conception is not now maintained by any respectable authority. It is a well-established fact of the utmost importance that such membranes may be expelled when there has never been sexual intercourse.

The membrane of dysmenorrhoea is to be distinguished from fibrinous masses, the remains of blood-clots from which the corpuscles have been squeezed; from mucus coagulated into shreds by astringent injections; and from the products of membranous vaginitis. Neither of these will present much difficulty with the aid of the microscope. The case is very different, however, when the membrane is to be distinguished from the decidua of an early pregnancy. From a single specimen or a single attack a diagnosis cannot be made. Thomas gives an instance of disagreement as to the nature of the same membrane by two of the highest microscopical authorities. The recurrence of the attacks at the regular menstrual periods will establish the diagnosis.

The prognosis of dysmenorrhoea varies in the different classes. In the obstructive form it will depend upon the curability of the lesion upon which it depends, and the same may be said of the congestive. The neuralgic cases do not yield readily to treatment, especially when dependent upon a peculiar and perhaps inherited nervous constitution. Caution should be exercised, however, in expressing an unfavorable prognosis. {198} Like all nervous diseases in the female, it is subject to great mutations without apparent adequate cause, and will sometimes suddenly disappear in an inexplicable manner.

The membranous form affords still less promise of cure: the unsatisfactory results of treatment are generally acknowledged.

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A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 (part 1 of 6)

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