Di*. Venables on the Cystic Oxide, &c; 3d 



^ The solution, and even permanent sblutiori, of the cystic 

 oxide, seems upon every principle of analogy and reasoning, 

 to form an essential feature in the treatment. This, if my 

 views be correct, cannot be safely nor advantageously at-t 

 tempted by means of the alkalis ; therefore we must have 

 recourse to those acids capable of exerting a solvent power 

 upon this principle. Indeed they appear to me superior in 

 every respect to the alkalis ; and in this view, though pos- 

 sibly upon different grounds, I am supported by Dr. Prout, 

 who says that the muriatic acid, " if the irritation present would 

 permit it, might, perhaps in all cases, be employed advan- 

 tageously, not only with the view of retaining the cystic oxide 

 in solution, but of inducing the lithic acid diathesis*." 



It is a problem of no easy solution, whether an. acid intro- 

 duced into the stomach be identically the same which, reaching 

 the kidneys and mixing with the urine in a free state, gives to 

 this fluid its acid reagency ; or whether this effect be the result 

 of more remote and less direct operations. Indeed the problem 

 hardly admits of unequivocal demonstration. Analogy, how- 

 ever, would infer the affirmative proposition. We know that 

 turpentine, nitre, and other similar salts, resist the decom- 

 posing powers of the stomach, making their way through the 

 kidneys unaltered, and may be chemically detected in the 

 urine. Hence, then, we may infer that the fixed or more un- 

 decompoundable acids will do the same. Upon these prin- 

 ciples I prefer the phosphoric acid to all others, for it certainly 

 seems to produce less irritation, and by holding the super- 

 abundant mucus in solution, thus favours its expulsion. Howr 

 ever, I have not had much opportunity of trying it in the cystic 

 oxide diathesis, although I have in the phosphatic and in 

 catarrh us vesicae. . 



Inflammatory action should be subdued and arrested by 

 sufficient depletion and an active antiphlogistic regimen. 

 Leeches, or occasional cupping the loins, sacrum, and the 

 hypogastrium, will prove highly serviceable; and the insertion 

 of permanent issues in the reno-lumbar regions will conduce 

 much towards suspending the progress of organic disease in 

 the kidneys. 



♦ Op. Cit., p. 169, 



