Volume 1

An American text-book of genito-urinary diseases, syphilis and diseases of the skin / edited by L. Bolton Bangs and W.A. Hardaway.

Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An American text-book of genito-urinary diseases, syphilis and diseases of the skin / edited by L. Bolton Bangs and W.A. Hardaway. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/612 (page 41)
    covered. These cases are sometimes hard to diagnosticate on this account, for, QO mutter how strong one's suspicion may be, the presence of casts is necessary in order to make the diagnosis justifiable. The'variety of hyaline casts called waxy (Figs. L5, 16) is found in far- advanced types of renal disease, in amyloid kidney, and also in many forms of nephritis as the fatal ter- mination of the disease approaches. MUCUS.—Mucus when seen in any amount usu- ally occurs in cystitis associated with decomposi- tion of the urine. In such cases the mucus coagu- a thick mucilaginous lates on standing, and forms Fig. 14.—Epithelial casts. Fig. 15.—Waxy casts. Fig. 16.—a, c, and d, waxy casts ; 6, a cast containing crystals of oxalate of lime (von Jaksch). vehicle for the sediment which appears as a ropy gelatinous mass in the urine. Aside from this, mucus is rarely of clinical importance in the urine. Prostatic Secretion.—The fluid secreted by the prostate, if present in an amount that makes it of clinical importance, can be seen floating in the urine (generally near the surface, for it is very light) as a stringy mass, more or less white and opaque-looking according as it has much or little pus mixed with it. Under the microscope it presents a fine meshwork of fibres, with which are intermingled rounded or oval cells already described in speaking of the epithelium of the dee]) urethra. Occasionally small refractive bodies, called sympexions by Robin, are seen. He describes them as opaline, trans- parent bodies, two millimeters in diameter, and w ith their edges more or less bevelled. They are thought to he the spermatic granules of normal semen held together in a mucous vehicle. Masses of them occasionally occlude the ejaculatory duct to an extent giving rise to what Reliquet1 has described as colique spermatique. 1 Gazette des Hdpitaux, 1874 ; 1879, p. 891.