Urinary diseases, and their treatment / by Robert Willis.

Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Urinary diseases, and their treatment / by Robert Willis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ]0 greater the quantity of fluid consumed, the more are the kidneys required to free the circulating mass from superfluous water ; and organs kept in a state of constant excitement often end by acquiring a habit of acting in excess. Let the kidneys, there- fore, have no more work put upon them than under ordinary circumstances they would find no difficulty in performing. As a powerful means of lightening the labour of the kidney, the due performance of the cutaneous function must be secured. In almost every form of diuresis that occurs, the skin is known to be in a withered and unperspiring state. This must be remedied by the use of the warm bath and flesh brush, the bath being taken every day or every other day, the brush diligently employed night and morning ; and further, by adopting warmer clothing than it is the fashion in this coun- try even for the aged to wear. With regard to medicines, these must be for the most part selected from the class of anodynes and tonics; as much of some mild aperient, too, as will secure the due action of the bowels, is indispen- sable. Probably there is no better compound under circumstances of the kind we have in view than a mixture of rhubarb and aloes, in combination with extract of hyoscyamus, which will be found to accomplish more than one of our indications. Mer- curials seldom do good in an irritable state of the system like that which accompanies great discharges of watery urine. Their use, even in the way of alteratives, can be very well dispensed with. Nar- cotics, and of these the chief, opium, are often of signal service in allaying the irritable condition that
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