A treatise on the formation, constituents and extraction of the urinary calculus; being the essay for which the Jacksonian Prize for ... 1833 was awarded / by John Green Crosse.

John Green Crosse

Date:: 1835

Credit: A treatise on the formation, constituents and extraction of the urinary calculus; being the essay for which the Jacksonian Prize for ... 1833 was awarded / by John Green Crosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$\ 3 upon persons already affected with the most prevailing disorders of the district, dyspepsia, scrofula, or rheumatism, cannot but be regarded as most powerful agents in giving rise to such frequent cases of gravel and stone. I have repeatedly known persons, who were free from gravelly complaints whilst residing in the metropolis, affected by them on spending a few weeks in the county referred to, and relieved, or entirely freed from them on a change of residence, although in each situation they followed carefully the same diet. Can we disregard climate, and the peculiar state of the atmosphere, in our attempts to explain such effects ? The local causes of calculous disorders, such as are situated in some parts of the urinary organs themselves, are more readily ascertained and better understood. A blow upon the loins, injuring the structure of the kidney, or deranging its functions, has been often known to give rise to calculous deposits. Whatever creates inflammation of the lining membrane of the pelvis of the kidney, will usually induce the same effects, more especially when the diseased action leads to a preternatural mucous secretion from the surfaces over which the urine, after escaping from the tubuli, passes, in its course towards the bladder. It may be generally stated that, whatever interrupts the free evacuation of the urine, in any part of the organs destined for the formation or passage of this fluid, becomes a disposing cause to calculous deposits. Stricture of the urethra is amongst the most common and powerful of such interruptions, acting upon the whole course of the urinary passages, detaining the urine in the bladder, produc¬ ing irritation, and at length chronic inflammation of the lining membrane of each cavity, and in the end, a catarrhal secretion from its surface. A stricture also causes stone, by detaining in the urethra or bladder, such small concretions as would otherwise pass readily away. In the case to which plate xvi, fig. I, refers, there was extreme stricture of the membranous part of the urethra, going on for several years, and bringing the lining membrane of the passage between it and the bladder, and the inner coat also of this latter viscus, into a morbid condition, so that much mucus was fur¬ nished by them, and deposited from the urine. The diseased action thus estab¬ lished, extended, by continuity of surface, even to the kidneys, and at length gave B 2$