Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

351/440 (page 333)

virtue of its elasticity^ and thus to afford a powerful obstacle to the displacement of the kidney. O'ppoher, Bayer, and Hare have proved the ocurrence of cures after the superven- tion of pregnancy. In like manner many observers have seen considerable relief to all the troubles (amounting to cure) follow the menopause and the proper treatment of symptoms by drugs, diet, and mechanical appliances. A cure is some- times effected by nothing more than a correct diagnosis, and an explanation to the patient of the benign character of her complaint; after which her hypochondriacal frame of mind and numerous imaginary maladies disappear suddenly. Even with regard to the complications of moveable kidney a good prognosis as far as concerns life is on the whole to be given. Thus, even the menacing symptoms of incarceration' have never yet been described as the cause of a fatal termi- nation. The prognosis after the establishment of hydronephrosis and perinephritic and paranephritic abscesses is less favour- able, but even then only in case of improper treatment. XI. Treatment. Moveable kidney does not require treatment corresponding- to the Indicatio morbi, unless it is the ruling cause of the morbid symptoms. To direct one's treatment against a moveable kidney in a case of general disease due to consump- tion or cancer, would be just as much beside the mark as to- treat a moveable sarcomatous kidney on account of its mobility. Attention must before all things be paid to the- causes of the moveable kidney. If they are of such a nature as to act continually on the mobility of the kidney (such as pendulous belly, or prolapse of the generative organs), it will be useless to treat the moveable kidney alone.. I'ortnnately the Indicatio morbi often coincides with the Indicatio causalis ; but in debating different methods it is important to be clear from the first about the object to be aimed at in each individual case, and about the end which it is possible as well as desirable to attain by one method or