Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

281/440 (page 263)

ovary or uterus witlain its substance. In tins respect, therefore, liydronepln-osis and moveable kidney behave alike, as the foregoing post-mortem records show, except that in the case of hydronephrosis the two layers of the meso-colon are kept apart by its constant growth, whereas in the case of move- able kidney it is the movements of the kidney which separate them (conf. the observations of Aberle and Sandifort). The •displacement of the colon has also been erroneously regarded as a congenital cause of moveable kidney. Moveable kidney produces no effect on the solid organs near it, thus even the supra-renal bodies are constantly found in their normal position. Among other pathological changes observed in the dead subject are adhesions, contracted by the kidney with neigh- bouring j)arts. A favourite spot for these adhesions is the lower border of the liver, the gall-bladder and transverse colon. It is rare for a moveable kidney to produce thrombosis •of the vena cava inferior by compression [Girard). YI. Etiology and Pathogenesis. If an attempt were made to explain the causes and mode of production of moveable kidney from post-mortem appear- ances only, the scarcity and incompleteness of post-mortem records would yield but imperfect results. Besides this, it would be impossible thus to decide the question whether the changes discovered after death were causes or consequences of moveable kidney. In this way indeed the length of the renal vessels, the presence of a mesentery of the kidney (mesonephron), and the displacement of the colon have been considered actual causes of moveable kidney, while accurate observation shows that they are just as much results of move- able kidney, or that both pathological conditions are possibly consequences of a third common cause. Finally, there may be present during life certain anatomical disturbances which have an important bearing on the pathology of moveable kidney, and yet cannot be recognised either by post-mortem examination or by examination of the fully formed patho-