A study of the arteries and veins in Bright's disease / by Arthur V. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Arthur Vincent, 1850-1912.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A study of the arteries and veins in Bright's disease / by Arthur V. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    BRIOH PS DISEASE' For some time past my clinical obserrations made annu- ally in the wards of a large general hospital have led me to feel how unsatisfactory is our present understanding of the cause of many forms of heart disease, and of the mode of origin of Bright’s disease, and at the same time how difficult it is to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of a case in which these two apparently far apart diseases are, as so commonly hapj>ens, coexistent. 'The intimate relation of disease of the two organs is so well known that for some years medical literature has been filled with va- rious theories to explain how the one is dependent upon or caused by the other. As a result of the observations of Bright it soon became well known that hy])crtrophy of the heart—and it was said of tlie left ventricle in particu- lar—w'as very commonly associated with disease of the kidney; and naturally enough it was thought, as the clin- ical history of such cases demonstrated the existence of kidney disease long l>efore that of the heart became known, and often the heart disease was not suspected at all be- fore the autopsy was made, that the heart disease was entirely dcjicndent upon, and c.aused by, that of the kid- ney, and complic.ated theories were brought forward to explain how the train was set in motion, and the various steps from its inception to its final development. Soon clinical medicine demonstrated that in many ca.ses in which the coexistence of heart and kidney disease w'as un- ' Read before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, June 6,