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

by Unknown

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 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.