On the preventive treatment of calculous disease and the use of solvent remedies / by Sir Henry Thompson.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the preventive treatment of calculous disease and the use of solvent remedies / by Sir Henry Thompson. 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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    you have often seen infesting the knuckles and dis- figuring the hands of elderly people in advanced stages of gout, are composed of the same material that is, of uric acid, usually as urate of soda. The identity of gout and uric acid gravel, then, is unquestionable; they constitute two different series of phenomena, but both spring from one and the same root. Now, what is the best mode of dealing with those patients who habitually pass the cayenne pepper crystals of uric acid, or the small calculi ? What mode of treatment will help to prevent the arrival of at least the advanced condition—namely, that of calculus too large to be voided by the patient ? Generally speaking, I think such patients come under observation in a tolerably early stage, although it is obvious this is by no means always the case. Some are unnecessarily alarmed at a very early period, when the urine is only occasionally thick with urates. They are apt to mistake the opaque secretion for some important manifestation of morbid matter, and to become greatly disturbed in consequence. Indeed, some patients become almost hypochondriac through not knowing that .such deposits are of little consequence at first, and