Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

269/440 (page 251)

Tlie colon therefore lay in tlie same position as in the former case except that the same displacement had been here produced by a hydronephrosis on the left side. (3) Moveable Kidneij on the right side j comjpression of the vena cava; thromhosis of the vena cava ; oedema of the right lower extremity j death in consequence of tubercular ^pleurisy (Girard^ 1837). A woman, forty-seven years of age, had suffered for twenty years from febrile symptoms and chest troubles which showed themselves by violent attacks of coughing, shortness of breath, and palpitation. She lost flesh rapidly, and six months previously, after a particularly violent attack of coughing, became conscious of severe abdominal pain. For the last month the right leg had been greatly swollen. The patient died with the symptoms of consumption. At the post-mortem, besides pleurisy on the right side, cavities, &c., the right lower extremity was swollen to twice the size of the other, the abdominal viscera healthy, the left kidney in its normal position. The right kidney showed a remarkable abnormality. The peritoneum, instead of merely covering its front surface, enveloped the whole kidney except the hilum and thus formed a sort of true mesentery about two inches long. The kidney also floated in the abdomen at the level of the third lumbar vertebra and at the inner side of the ascending colon, which, distended with gas, pressed the kidney forcibly against the vena cava inferior. The vein showed at this spot a considerable consti'iction with a dilatation below to nearly double its size. From the heart to this constriction it was healthy in its course ; but below this point it showed true areolar or cavernous tissue like that of the penis, which filled the whole calibre of the vessel, and reached to within two or three inches of the groin. The femoral and saphenous veins were of the normal diameter. The right kidney itself presented no special point of interest.