FOUL HABIT, HOW PRODUCED j HOW CURED. KTONEYS. 51 



function properly ; or, if they do so, then the liver and the kidneys fail in re- 

 fining the blood sufficiently, so that, at its getting to the extremities once 

 more, those particles which ought to have been carried off are there deposited, 

 and form the nidus of those external maladies that are mistakenly considered 

 local diseases, and treated as such, instead of correcting the foul habit of body 

 which is thus plainly indicated. Of the whole series of tumours or abscess, 

 grease is the only one which people in general think of taking up into the 

 system ; the matter that proceeds from the pustules that form grease is so pal- 

 pably composed of urea, or the principle of urine, which ought to have been 

 attracted to the kidneys, that every body who would cure the grease, very 

 properly, as if by instinct, administers diuretics ; and when this means of 

 cure is adopted early, always with a proportionate degree of success. But of 

 these things more in the following sections. 



53. The Kidneys, although the seat of only one disorder (inflammation), 

 yet are they so intimately connected with the cure of other diseases, which 

 are constitutional, that a right knowledge of their functions can not but prove 

 highly serviceable in the judicious administration of the universally approved 

 method of cure, by the urinary passage. Diuretics, or urine balls, are so con- 

 stantly in the hands of grooms and others, that I would admonish them thus 

 early to reflect a little on the consequences of going on from day to day in 

 urging these fine glands to over-exertion, whereby they are kept in a constant 

 state o( irritation, are rendered incapable of acting their part, or literally be- 

 come rotten. They are situated, one on each side of the spine, close to the 

 last two ribs (see plate G, H, as intersected by figures 28 — 30), where they 

 are attached as well by the blood-vessels which belong to them, as by stout 

 cellular membranes which cover them underneath. With this exception the 

 kidneys of horses seldom have the covering of fat, termed suet, which wc find 

 in other animals, owing, no doubt, to the very great action of the parts. Mr. 

 Richard Lawrence must have been thinking on the ox or sheep's kidneys, 

 when he wrote his 289th page. For my part, so little of this fat on the kid- 

 neys has been noticed by me, that this book was already at press before I was 

 convinced they were ever covered ; and yet I have assisted in opening 

 and noting the state of as many horses, 1 believe, as any man in England 

 who ever wrote a line on this subject : in France, I have reason to conclude, 

 they are more industrious in this respect. The left kidney lies close to the 

 ribs; the right one farther forward, is loose, and is connected with the right 

 lobe of the liver ; which being much longer than its left lobe, seems to extend 

 itself backward for that purpose. Excitement, no doubt, is the mutual intent 

 of this connexion ; and that deviation from her true system, which nature al- 

 lows in the effusion from one part to another, takes place, when either the 

 one or the other may be diseased, obstructed, injured, or destroyed. On no 

 other grounds can we account how it is brute animals so long survive the total 

 destruction of some vital part, as we frequently find.* One consequence of 

 this loose situation of the right kidney is, that inflammation generally makes 

 its appearance upon it earlier than on the left, a circumstance which is partly 

 derived from its proximity to the liver; it also imparts some of its own feel- 

 ing to that organ, when inflamed ; two facts these which ought to be well 

 kept in mind, when we wish to excite unusual secretion in either. In shape, 

 the left kidney approaches the angular more than the right one ; from which 

 1 infer that, although the functions of the two must be so nearly the same, 

 ?Ji affectivjris they differ ; at least a gall or slight blow will aflfectthe left much 

 sooner than the right kidney. 



• Latterly, Mr. Travers ha.-? given the public the »p?ultsof many curious experiinentfl 5*1 

 ibis subject 



