Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

266/440 (page 248)

$between 1859 and 1S66, and of these lie unfortunately ,nves no description. By the kindness of Geheimrath Professor -Ur. \irchow I was permitted to look through the post- mortem records of the Charite hotween the years 1870 and 1879 containing about 6000 autopsies, and among them I found moveable kidney only four times noted, and even then without any special statement about it. This slender result, however, can surprise no one who re- members that moveable kidney as such never produces a fatal result, and rarely gives any indication either to the clinical physician or to the pathological anatomist to specially inves- tigate on the dead subject the amount of the mobility of the kidneys. Since, in addition to this, a moveable 'kidney, even in well-marked cases, is frequently in the habit of re- turning to its normal position during life under the condi- tions of dorsal decubitus, and still more so immediately after death (see below), even well-marked cases are very apt to escape our observation during an autopsy conducted in the usual manner, particularly as it usual to remove the kidneys from the abdominal cavity before removing the intestines and other abdominal viscera. ^ In the last place, however, moveable kidney sometimes gives rise to complications of such a nature that its presence can no longer be seen but only inferred in the cadaver; this is the case in many peri- and para-nephritic abscesses, hydro- and pyo-nephroses, thromboses of the vessels, &c., which are regarded as diseases sui generis, whereas their proper place belongs to the pathology of moveable kidney. Considering, therefore, the rarity of post-mortem records it would seem not superfluous to enumerate them in this place, scattered as they are, and collected with much labour. In the performance of this task it is evident that the most accurate and serviceable accounts date from the period ante- cedent to the microscope, whereas in the autopsies dating from more recent times, the coarser naked eye changes which concern us in this place are generally neglected.$

Selected monographs.

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