SECT. 1 88.] THEIR PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS. 4O9 



the straight and tortuous tubules. On the other hand, the concretions of 

 uric acid and calcareous salts, which are seen so frequently in the cavity of 

 the canals, have not yet been demonstrated with certainty to occur within 

 the cells themselves — at any rate, in vertebrate animals (though Simon 

 ['Thymus,' p. 69] has frequently found crystals in the renal cells of fish). 

 Bright yellow masses, resembling colloid, arc very frequently met with in the 

 epithelial cells, and these generally enlarge and develop into narrow cysts, of 

 0-05'" to 0-07 2'" in length, which at length burst and discharge their colloid 

 contents, which are then found free in the tubules as well as in the urine. A 

 development of the epithelial cells to other cysts, as is assumed by J. Simon 

 and Gildemeester (Tijdschr. J. Nederl. Maatsch., 1850), has not hitherto oc- 

 curred to me ; on the other hand, I have distinctly verified the observation 

 of Johnson, and have found, in an atrophied kidney, a breaking up of the tor- 

 tuuus tubules into shut sacs, apparently from the development of connective 

 1 issue between them and separating them, the cysts thus formed having the 

 same structure as the tubules, and being partly of the same width as these, 

 and partly dilated to vesicles o"i'" in size. Beckmann has recently observed 

 the formation of such cysts in the straight tubules. The Malpighian cor- 

 puscles may also become dilated into cysts, in which, besides a clear fluid, 

 the atrophied glomerulus may often be seen upon the wall. Abnormal con- 

 tents may appear in the tubules as follows : 1. blood, most frequently in the 

 commencement of the tortuous tubules, especially in those of the surface. 

 This is sometimes effused in such quantities, that red points, the size of a 

 pin's head, arise, which were formerly incorrectly regarded as dilated Mal- 

 pighian corpuscles ; 2. a gelatiniform substance, probably fibrine, in cylin- 

 drical masses, corresponding to the cavity of the tubules (see Beckmann, in 

 Virch. Arch., xi.) ; 3. the above-mentioned colloid substance; 4. concretions 

 in the Bellinian tubules, consisting, in the adidt, chiefly of carbonate and 

 phosphate of lime ; in newly-born infants, of uric acid salts, which give the 

 pyramids a bright golden-yellow colour. Though not without exceptions, 

 still it is the rule that these crystals only occur in children which have 

 breathed (between the third and twentieth day). In the later stages of 

  Bright 's disease,' many tubules, which have lost their epithelium by exuda- 

 tion into them, become atrophied, and ultimately completely disappear, whilst 

 groups of others become filled with fatty disintegrating exudation, and are 

 dilated so as to form small prominences — the 'granulations' of Christison. 



§ 188. Vessels and Nerves. — The large renal artery divides, in 

 the pelvis of the kidney, into a certain number of branches, which 

 supply the parts situated in the hilus, and then pass above and 

 beneath the renal nerves into the cortical substance — the columnce 

 Bert ini — situated beneath the pyramids. From hence they run 

 close to the line of demarcation between the pyramids and cortical 

 substance, and divide repeatedly, so as to form a beautiful ramifi- 

 cation without anastomoses, generally from two large arteries. 

 From the part of this branch-work which is directed towards the 

 cortical substance, small arteries arise at right angles with great 

 regularity, and these divide several times, until they form fine 



