Selected monographs : comprising Albuminuria in health and disease ... Some considerations on the nature and pathology of typhus and typhoid fever ... Moveable kidney in women.

Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs : comprising Albuminuria in health and disease ... Some considerations on the nature and pathology of typhus and typhoid fever ... Moveable kidney in women. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    to tliis cpitlielium the retention of tlio albumen under normal conditions. Such then is the shape which in recent years the theories with regard to albuminuria have assumed, mainly in Ger- many, but also in other countries, as may be inferred from the latest writings of Charcot, (lo) Lepine, (ii) and others. It is obvious that this theory has the advantage of great simplicity as compared with the older views, for all other factors, to which formerly so much thought and investigation were directed, are now held to be inoperative ; they are even scarcely mentioned. Posner, indeed, does not think it worth while to discuss them, for he asserts that they are devoid of any real basis. He goes, however, much too far in his assertions ; for some time past facts have accumulated clearly indicating the dependence of many forms of albuminuria upon alterations in membranes other than those of the Mal- pighian tufts, and yet concerned in the secretion of urine, or upon changes in the condition of the blood. The facts referred to could not therefore be excluded from a treatise on this subject, and they will be examined in the following sections after the influence of circulatory changes has been discussed, for to these latter they are undoubtedly subordinate in importance. I. The Various Poems in which Albumen is Excreted. In calling attention to the older views with regard to albu- minuria, I do not mean that they should be simply received in the somewhat vague and indefinite form in which they have been handed down, but I wish to show that, as com- pared with the most recent, simple, but one-sided doctrines, they make better allowance for facts, inasmuch as they pro- ceed from a higher stand-point and embrace a larger field of view. It is true that even they do not so comprehend all points of view that none are left out; the circle of possibili- ties may extend itself beyond past and present ideas. How much of them is worthy of consideration, and for what cases the one or the other possibility is deserving of notice will be discussed in the following pages.