A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 : $b Diseases of the genito-urinary and cutaneous systems. Medical ophthalmology, and otology
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 : $b Diseases of the genito-urinary and cutaneous systems. Medical ophthalmology, and otology
Medicine -- Practice
In the earlier stages of dyspnoea five-grain doses of the iodide of
potash with a little opium will sometimes keep the patient comfortable
for months. For the severe attacks of dyspnoea dry cups over the chest
and inhalations of oxygen are of service. In the worst and most
uncontrollable dyspnoea it seems justifiable to keep the patient under
the influence of ether or chloroform.
{99} SUPPURATIVE NEPHRITIS AND PYELO-NEPHRITIS.
Suppurative inflammation of the tissue of the kidney and of its pelvis
and calices occurs under several different conditions: It is the result
of injuries; it is due to emboli; it occurs without discoverable
causes; it is secondary to cystitis, the cystitis being due to
strictures of the urethra, to stone in the bladder, to paraplegia, to
operations on the urethra, bladder, and uterus, to gonorrhoea, to
enlarged prostate.
Chronic suppurative pyelo-nephritis is often caused by the presence of
calculi in the pelvis of the kidney.
1. Suppurative Nephritis from Injury.--Gunshot wounds, incised or
punctured wounds, falls, blows, and kicks are the ordinary traumatic
causes. If the injury is a very severe one, it causes the death of the
patient in a short time; if it is less severe, suppurative inflammation
may be developed.
The inflammatory process may be diffuse, so that the whole of one or
both kidneys is converted into a soft mass composed of pus, blood, and
broken-down tissue, or it is circumscribed, and one or more abscesses
are found in the kidney which may communicate with the pelvis.
SYMPTOMS.--Rigors mark the beginning of the suppuration, and are often
repeated through its course. A febrile movement is developed which is
apt to assume the hectic character with sweatings. There is often
vomiting. There may be very severe pain, referred to the region of the
inflamed kidneys. The urine is diminished or suppressed; it contains
blood alone or blood and pus.
In the bad cases the patients pass into the typhoid condition, become
delirious, and die comatose or with a very rapid or febrile pulse. Or
the disease is protracted, the patients become more and more emaciated,
and finally die exhausted.
In other cases the symptoms abate, the urine returns to its natural
condition, and the patients recover.
TREATMENT.--The management of these cases is rather surgical than
medical. The external wound is to be treated antiseptically, and the
general condition of the patient to be looked after in the ordinary
way.
Such traumatic abscesses are of infrequent occurrence. I have no
personal knowledge of them.
2. Abscesses produced by Emboli.--In ordinary endocarditis with
vegetations on the valves it often happens that fragments of the
vegetations become fixed in the branches of the renal arteries. When
this is the case infarctions are produced, usually of the white
variety.
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