On some diseases in which albuminous urine occurs / by Thomas Williamson.

Date:
[1841]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some diseases in which albuminous urine occurs / by Thomas Williamson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    base of the cranium. The two serous surfaces of the pericardium were universally adherent, by old cellular tissue. The left ven- tricle of heart was hypertrophied, without much dilatation. A ring- of osseous deposit was found surrounding the mitral valve. The liver was about its natural size, but much affected with cirrhosis. The kidneys were perfectly healthy. The urine was of a dark straw-colour; specific gravity, 1018. Heat and nitric acid gave an albuminous precipitate, equal in volume to perhaps a fourth of the fluid employed. Dr Blackall gives an instance of albuminous urine co-existing with diseased liver, which we shall here abridge. Case XI. A. B. aged 45, sallow and bloated skin ; pulse 100, hard; dyspnoea; loss of voice, and stricture about the hy- pochondria; abdomen swelled ; frequent dark bilious discharges ; oedema of legs ; urine of the appearance and colour of rennet whey, copious at night, precipitating at 160 ; convulsions shortly came on, with fixed but not dilated pupils. Blood drawn was watery, and much cupped. Not more than two hours before her death, the pulse remained still quick and hard. Dissection.—Lungs everywhere free from adhesion ; about four ounces of bloody serum on each side of the chest; a small quan- tity of pale fluid in the pericardium ; very little water in the ab- domen. The liver hard, with a thick curled edge, its membrane being rather white, and greatly thickened, and its surface irregu- lar with tubercles. A considerable portion of its substance was divided into hard brown tubercular masses; the other viscera of the abdomen sound. “ I speak,” says he, “ particularly of the kidneys.”* It is clearly evident from this language, that his at- tention was in an especial manner directed to the kidneys, so that it is scarcely possible to conceive that, had their tissue been mate- rially affected, the change would have eluded his observation. Case XII.—James Lamb, aged 48, by occupation a carpen- ter, wras squeezed between two logs of wood in a ship-building yard, and immediately brought to the Leith Dispensary, where he soon afterwards died. Upon dissection, the four superior ribs of both sides were found fractured. The right lobe of the liver was lacerated and torn. Its substance presented the appearance usual- ly known under the name of cirrhosis. The kidneys were quite healthy. The bladder contained so little urine as to prevent our ascertaining its proper specific gravity; but which, nevertheless, yielded a copious precipitate both by heat and nitric acid. This man had enjoyed good health previously. Case XIII.—V. Ward, aged 41, died labouring under the symptoms of phthisis and diabetes insipidus. Upon dissection, * Blackall on Dropsies, p. 145.