Renal tension and its treatment by surgical means / by Reginald Harrison.

  • Harrison, Reginald, 1837-1908.
Date:
[1901]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Renal tension and its treatment by surgical means / by Reginald Harrison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    means of which the water can be quickly heated and transformed. Should a number of the tubes become damaged and inoperative, their temporary loss is provided for by a more rapid circulation of the water through those tubes that remain. This is brought about by a mere mechanism. In the same way with the kidneys, when their uriniferous tubes become damaged or rendered inoperative by pressure or blockage an increased circulatory force becomes excited. In the human subject this means cardiac hypertrophy and vascular tension throughout. If a certain amount of blood has to be driven through the kidneys in twenty-four hours for the excretory purposes of the body, it stands to reason that the force to effect this must • be relative to the resistance offered. Cardiac effort may, therefore, be regarded as only proportionate to and determinable by the latter. If the kidneys were as immediately situated relative to the heart as the lungs are, no one would question the direct influence of the congestion and blockage of the former in producing cardiac hypertrophy in this way. The increased distance, however, that these organs occupy relative to the circulation rather adds to the probability of this explanation, as