Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

301/440 (page 283)

283- Symptoms arising from the Nervous System. Patiei>ts who are the subjects of moveable kidney are- nsnally affectecl with hypochondriasisj especially if they dis- covei- a tumour in their abdomen by accident, and this frame- of mind increases if the malady is diagnosed as a malignant growth by the doctor, or if, in spite of a contrary opinion on his part, the patient takes it for one. This unfortunate- humour finds tangible pabulum if the patient feels jDains in the abdomen, whether due to the tumour or other causes,, and often grows so much on her that she readily decides of her own accord to have the moveable kidney removed. This condition, which is seldom found even in the case of malig- nant tumours, can easily be explained when one considers that these patien|.s are reminded by a moveable kidney more than by any other tumour—at every step, on dressing and undressing, even, on turning in bed—of the presence of an apparently serious malady ; and in this view they are often confirmed by doctors. Some patients complain of a feeling of pressure and weight,, of dragging and drawing in the lower abdomen, they feel as if something had been unhooked in their belly. Others- feel beating, or a moi-e circumscribed gnawing griping pain in the region of the navel. These unpleasant sensations are- compared by women who have had children to foetal move- ments, and they sometimes think themselves pregnant, espe- cially if they wish to be so. Among other characteristic expressions may be mentioned the feeling as if one of their sides was dropping off, or as if something was turning round in their belly. Often, but wrongly, these complaints are regarded as hysterical. No doubt among the women who have moveable kidney some are hysterical, but we should not agree with ChrobacJc (who in nineteen cases saw hysteria eight times) oi* with Lancereaux (who saw it ia cases of moveable kidney four times), in considering the moveable kidney as the cause- of the hysteria. It is intelligible that the imagination of an hysterical patient will bo unusually excited by the presence of a moveable tumour in the abdomen, but the painful and unpleasant sensations caused by moveable kidney ought not