A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4

by Unknown

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.

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

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.