98 INFECTIOUS AND PARASITIC DISEASES. 



voiding of urine, a condition which itself predisposes to 

 inflammation of the bladder (cystitis). Often there 

 is such obstruction that ''catheter-life"* is necessarily 

 resorted to, with the result that infection sooner or 

 later occurs. This per se is not immediately dangerous 

 to life, although the intermittent pyrexia (fever), and 

 the continuous discharge of pus, sap the patient's 

 strength. Subsequently symptoms of toxaemia develop 

 either through extension of the inflammation to the 

 kidneys or from absorption, or from both causes. 

 Death finally takes place from an intensification of 

 the toxaemia, or from bacteriaemia. Pulmonary tuber- 

 culosis is also encountered in old persons, and may 

 also be a cause of death. Besides these affections, 

 there are practically no others to which a person beyond 

 sixty years is predisposed. Occasionally measles 

 attacks a patriarch, and sometimes typhoid fever, but 

 such instances are exceptional. 



* The condition in which a catheter is always employed when the 

 bladder is to be emptied. 



