CHAPTER IX 



CYSTIC DISEASE OF THE URINARY TRACT IN MAN 



THE sketch, Fig. 21, repeats the salient anatomical features of a 

 well-characterized instance of this disease. It represents half the 

 left kidney, the ureter, and bladder, removed after death from a 

 woman of sixty years who died from cerebral haemorrhage, no 

 urinary symptoms being recorded during the brief period that she 

 was in hospital. I have elsewhere 1 described the appearance thus : 

 ' In removing the abdominal viscera the left kidney was noticed to 

 be hydronephrotic, and the ureter was found to contain small elastic- 

 feeling bodies which collapsed on pressure. The same kidney was 

 seen to contain a group of small cysts at its upper end. In the 

 dilated pelvis of the kidney and in the upper half of the ureter there 

 were numerous cysts of a greenish-brown 2 colour, having on an 

 average the size of hemp-seed. There was a moderate amount of 

 hydronephrosis. There were numerous small cysts at the neck of 

 the bladder and at the vesical orifices of the ureters. The contents 

 of the cysts of the ureter in the fresh state showed under the micro- 

 scope large and small oval and irregular cells, which contained 

 bright globules. Some of the globules were free, and they, like those 

 contained in the cells, stained readily with gentian-violet, log- 

 wood, etc.' 3 



1 Transactions of the Pathological Society of London, 1892, p. 94. 



2 A good coloured illustration of a typical case of this cystic disease of kidney 

 and ureter is given in Morris's ' Surgical Diseases of the Kidney,' first edition, 

 Plate III. 



3 Many similar cases are now on record. The oval bodies were pronounced to 

 be ' psorosperms ' by the late T. S. Cobbold. The literature up to the date is 



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